SERIES OF DISCOURSES 



SERIES 



DISCOURSES 

THE CHHISTIAK HEVfMTlttK, 

VIEWES& 

IN CONNEXION 

WITH 

THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 

/BY 

THOMAS CHALMERS, D. IX 

•SINISTER OP THE TR0N CHURCH, GEA,SG»W. 



NEW-YORK: 

RELISHED BY KIRK & MERSEI5; 

No, 22 Wall-Street 
1817, 



/B/7 



31951 



J. k. J. Harper, Printers. 



PREFACE, 



The astronomical objection against the truth of 
the Gospel does not occupy a very prominent 
place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is 
often, however, met with in conversation — and we 
have known it to be the cause of serious per- 
plexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid 
establishment of their religious faith. 

There is an imposing splendour in the science 
of astronomy ; and it is not to be wondered at, if 
the light it throws, or appears to throw, over 
other tracks of speculation than those which are 
properly its own, should at times dazzle and mis- 
lead an inquirer. On this account, we think it 
were a service to what we deem a true arid a 
righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating 
this illusion; and in stripping Infidelity of those 
pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain air 
of philosophical greatness, by which it has often 
become so destructively alluring to the young, 
and the ardent, and the ambitious. 



6 



In my first Discourse, I have attempted a sketch 
of the Modern Astronomy — nor have I wished to 
throw any disguise over that comparative little- 
ness which belongs to our planet, and which gives 
to the argument of Freethinkers all its plausi- 
bility. 

This argument involves in it an assertion and 
an inference. The assertion is, that Christianity 
is a religion which professes to be designed for 
the single benefit of our world ; and the inference 
is, that God cannot be the author of this religion, 
for he would not lavish on so insignificant a field 
such peculiar and such distinguishing attentions 
as are ascribed to him in the Old and New Testa- 
ment. 

Christianity makes no such profession. That it 
is designed for the single benefit of our world, is 
altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself- — 
and feeling that this is not the only example of 
temerity which can be charged on the enemies of 
our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to 
the attempt of demonstrating the utter repugnance 
of such a spirit with the cautious and enlightened 
philosophy of modern times. 

In the course of this Sermon I have offered a 
tribute of acknowledgment to the theology of Sir 
Isaac Newton ; and in such terms, as if not farther 
explained, may be liable to misconstruction. The 



7 



grand circumstance of applause in the character 
of this great man, is, that unseduced by all the 
magnificence of his own discoveries, he had a 
solidity of mind which could resist their fascina- 
tion, and keep him in steady attachment to that 
book whose general evidences stamped upon it 
the impress of a real communication from heaven. 
This was the sole attribute of his theology which 
I had in my eye when I presumed to eulogise it 
I do not think, that, amid the distraction and the 
engrossment of his other pursuits, he has at all 
times succeeded in his interpretation of the book ; 
else he would never, in my apprehension, have 
abetted the leading doctrine of a sect, or a system^ 
which has now nearly dwindled away from public 
observation. 

In my third Discourse I am silent as to the as- 
sertion, and attempt to combat the inference thai 
is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the analo- 
gies of nature and of providence, we can lay no 
limit on the condescension of God, or on the mul- 
tiplicity of his regards even to the very humblest 
departments of creation; and that it is not for us 9 
who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care 
spread in such exhaustless profusion around us, t& 
say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth 
of his wondrous attributes on the salvation even of 
our solitary species. 



8 



At this point of the argument I trust that the in- 
telligent reader may be enabled to perceive in the 
adversaries of the gospel, a twofold dereliction 
from the maxims of the Baconian philosophy; 
that, in the first instance, the assertion which forms 
the groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously 
fetched out of an unknown region where they are 
utterly abandoned by the light of experience ; and 
that, in the second instance, the inference they 
urge from it, is in the face of manifold and unde- 
niable truths, all lying within the safe and accessi- 
ble field of human observation. 

In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the 
informations of the record. The Infidel objec- 
tion, drawn from astronomy, may be considered 
as by this time disposed of ; and if we have suc- 
ceeded in clearing it away, so as to deliver the 
Christian testimony from all discredit upon this 
ground, then may we submit, on the strength of 
other evidences, so be guided by its information. 
We shall thus learn, that Christianity has a far 
more extensive bearing on the other orders of 
creation than the Infidel is disposed to allow ; and 
whether he will own the authority of this informa- 
tion or not, he will, at least, be forced to admit, 
that the subject matter of the Bible itself is not 
chargeable with that objection which he has at- 
tempted to fasten upon it. 



9 



Thus had my only object been the refutation of 
the Infidel argument, I might have spared the last 
Discourses of the Volume altogether. But the 
tracts of Scriptural information to which they di- 
rected me, I considered as worthy of prosecution 
on their own account — and f do think, that much 
may be gathered from these less observed portions 
of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to elevate, 
and to guide the believer. 

But, in the management of such a discussion as 
this, though for a great degree of this effect it 
would require to be conducted in a far higher 
style than I am able to sustain, the taste of the 
human mind may be regaled, and its understand- 
ing put into a state of the most agreeable exer- 
cise. Now, this is quite distinct from the con- 
science being made to feel the force of a personal 
application ; nor could I either bring this argu- 
ment to its close in the pulpit, or offer it to the 
general notice of the world, without adverting, in 
the last Discourse, to a delusion which I fear, is 
carrying forward thousands, and tens of thousands* 
to an undone eternity, 

I have closed the Volume with an Appendix of 
Scriptural authorities. I found that I could not 
easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, 
and have, therefore, thought fit to present them 
in a separate form. I look for a twofold benefit 
from this exhibition — first, on those more general 

E 



10 



readers, who are ignorant of the Scriptures, and 
of the riches and variety which abound in them — » 
and, secondly, on those narrow and intolerant 
professors, who take an alarm at the very sound 
and semblance of philosophy, and feel as if there 
was an utter irreconcileable antipathy between its 
lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and 
piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I 
conceive, for our cause, that the latter could be- 
come a little more indulgent on this subject ; that 
they gave up a portion of those ancient and 
hereditary prepossessions, which go so far to 
cramp and to enthral them ; that they would suffer 
theology to take that wide range of argument and 
of illustration which belongs to her; and that, 
less sensitively jealous of any desecration being 
brought upon the Sabbath, or the pulpit, they 
would suffer her freely to announce all those 
truths, which either serve to protect Christianity 
from the contempt of science, or to protect the 
teachers of Christianity from those invasions which 
are practised both on the sacredness of the office, 
and on the solitudes of its devotional and intel- 
lectual labours. 

I shall only add, for the information of readers 
at a distance, that these Discourses were chiefly 
delivered on the occasion of the week-day sermon 
that is preached in rotation by the Ministers of 
Glasgow. 



CONTENTS. 



DISCOURSE I. 

A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 

Page 

61 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained 5 What 
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of 
man, that thou visitest him ?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. . . . 17 

DISCOURSE II. 

THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 

"And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he 
knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." — 1 Cor. 
viii. 2. 4? 

DISCOURSE III. 

ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 

"Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on 
high ? Who humbleth himself to behold the things that 
,are m heaven, and in the earth • Psalm cxiii. 5, 6. ?- 7§ 



12 



DISCOURSE IV. 

OBJ" THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY IN THE 
DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 

Page 

* Which things the angels desire to look into." — 1 Peter 
i. 12 . . ... • . ... 101 

DISCOURSE V. 

ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN IN THE DIS- 
TANT PLACES OF CREATION. 

a I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over 
one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and 
nine just persons which need no repentance." — Luke 
xv. 7. ; . * . 12T 

DISCOURSE VI. 

&N THE CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN, AMONGST 
THE HIGHER ORDERS OF INTELLIGENCE. 

t{ - And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a 
show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." — 
Col. ii. 15 149 

DISCOURSE VII. 

ON THE SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SEN- 
SIBILITY IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 

a And, lo ! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one 
that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an in- 
strument : for they hear thy words, but they do them 
not." — Ezekiel xxxiii. 32. .... . 170 



Appendix, 



203 



DISCOURSE I. 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY, 



w When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; What is man, 
that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou 
visitest him ?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. 

In the reasonings of the Apostle Paul, we cannot 
fail to observe how studiously he accommodates 
his arguments to the pursuits, or principles, or 
prejudices of the people whom he was address- 
ing. He often made a favourite opinion of their 
own the starting point of his explanation; and 
educing a dexterous but irresistible train of argu- 
ment from some principle upon which each of the 
parties had a common understanding, did he force 
them out of all their opposition, by a weapon of 
their own choosing — nor did he scruple to avail 
himself of a Jewish peculiarity, or a heathen 
superstition, or a quotation from Greek poetry, by 
which he might gain the attention of those whom 
he laboured to convince, and by the skilful appli- 
cation of which, he might " shut them up unto the 
faith." 

c 



18 



Now, when Paul was thus addressing one class 
of an assembly or congregation, another class 
might, for the time, have been shut out of all direct 
benefit and application from his arguments. When 
he wrote an Epistle to a mixed assembly of Chris- 
tianized Jews and Gentiles, he had often to direct 
such a process of argument to the former, as the 
latter would neither require nor comprehend. 
Now, what should have been the conduct of the 
Gentiles at the reading of that part of the Epistle 
which bore almost an exclusive reference to the 
Jews ? Should it be impatience at the hearing of 
something for which they had no relish or under- 
standing? Should it be a fretful disappointment, 
because every thing that was said, was not said 
for their edification ? Should it be angry discontent 
with the Apostle, because, leaving them in the 
dark, he had brought forward nothing for them, 
through the whole extent of so many successive 
chapters? Some of them may have felt in this way ; 
but surely it would have been vastly more Chris- 
tian to have sat with meek and unfeigned patience, 
and to have rejoiced that the great Apostle had 
undertaken the management of those obstinate 
prejudices, which kept back so many human 
beings from the participation of the Gospel. And 
should Paul have had reason to rejoice, that, by 
the success of his arguments, he had reconciled 
one or any number of Jews to Christianity, then it 
was the part of these Gentiles, though receiving 
no direct or personal benefit from the arguments, 



19 



to have blessed God, and rejoiced along with 
him. 

Conceive that Paul were at this moment alive, 
and zealously engaged in the work of pressing the 
Christian religion on the acceptance of the vari- 
ous classes of society. Should he not still have 
acted on the principle of being all things to all 
men ? Should he not have accommodated his dis- 
cussion to the prevailing taste, and literature, and 
philosophy of the times? Should he not have 
closed with the people, whom he was addressing, 
on some favourite principle of their own ; and, in 
the prosecution of this principle, might he not 
have got completely beyond the comprehension of 
a numerous class of zealous, humble, and devoted 
Christians ? Now, the question is not, how these 
would conduct themselves in such circumstances ? 
but how should they do it ? Would it be right in 
them to sit with impatience, because the argument 
of the Apostle contained in it nothing in the way 
of comfort or edification to themselves? Should 
not the benevolence of the Gospel give a different 
direction to their feelings ? And, instead of that 
narrow, exclusive, and monopolizing spirit, w hich 
I fear is too , characteristic of the more declared 
professors of the truth as it is in Jesus, ought they 
not to be patient, and to rejoice ; when to philo- 
sophers, and to men of literary accomplishment, 
and to those who have the direction of the public 
taste among the upper walks of society, such ar« 



20 



gumente are addressed as may bring home to their 
acceptance also, " the words of this life ?" It is 
under the impulse of these considerations, that I 
have, with some hesitation, prevailed upon myself 
to attempt an argument which I think fitted to 
soften and subdue those prejudices which lie at 
the bottom of what may be called the infidelity of 
natural science; if possible to bring over to the 
humility of the Gospel, those who expatiate with 
delight on the wonders and the sublimities of crea- 
tion ; and to convince them that a loftier wisdom 
still than that even of their high and honourable 
acquirements, is the wisdom of him who is resolved 
to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him cru? 
cified. 

It is truly a most Christian exercise, to extract 
a sentiment of piety from the works and the ap- 
pearances of nature. It has the authority of the 
Sacred Writers upon its side, and even our Sa- 
viour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity 
of his example. " Behold the lilies of the field | 
they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your hea- 
venly Father careth for them." He expatiates on 
the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it 
the delightful argument of confidence in God. 
He gives us to see that taste may be combined 
with piety, and that the same heart may be occu- 
pied with all that is serious in the contemplations 
of religion, and be at the same time alive to the 
charms and the loveliness of nature. 



21 



The Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. He 
leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that 
mighty expanse which spreads above it and around 
it. He wings his way through space, and wanders 
in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead 
of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees it 
crowded with splendour, and tilled with the energy 
of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its im- 
mensity before him, and the world, with all which 
it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation 
so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that 
he is not overlooked amid the grandeur and the 
variety which are on every side of him, and pass- 
ing upward from the majesty of nature to the ma- 
jesty of nature's Architect, he exclaims, " What is 
man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man that thou shouldest deign to visit him ?" 

It is not for us to say, whether inspiration re- 
vealed to the Psalmist the wonders of the modern 
astronomy. But even though the mind be a per- 
fect stranger to the science of these enlightened 
times, the heavens present a great and an elevating 
spectacle, an immense concave reposing upon the 
circular boundary of the world, and the innumera- 
ble lights which are suspended from on high, 
moving with solemn regularity along its surface. 
It seems to have been at night that the piety of the 
Psalmist was awakened by this contemplation, 
when the moon and the stars were visible, and not 
when the sun had risen in his strength, and thrown 



22 



a splendour around him, which bore down and 
eclipsed all the lesser glories of the firmament. 
And there is much in the scenery of a nocturnal 
sky, to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That 
moon, and these stars, what are they? They are 
detached from the world, and they lift you above 
it. You feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise 
in lofty abstraction above this little theatre of 
human passions and human anxieties. The mind 
abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in 
the ecstacy of its thoughts, to distant and unex- 
plored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of 
her great elements, and it sees the God of nature 
invested with the high attributes of wisdom and 
majesty. 

But what can these lights be ? The curiosity of 
the human mind is insatiable, and the mechanism 
of these wonderful heavens has, in all ages, been 
its subject and its employment. It has been re- 
served for these latter times, to resolve this great 
and interesting question. The sublimest powers 
of philosophy have been called to the exercise, 
and astronomy may now be looked upon as the 
most certain and best established of the sciences. 

We all know that every visible object appears 
less in magnitude as it recedes from the eye. The 
lofty vessel as it retires from the coast, shrinks 
into littleness, and at last appears in the form of 
a small speck on the verge of the horizon. The 



23 



eagle with its expanded wings, is a noble object ; 
but when it takes its flight into the upper regions 
of the air, it becomes less to the eye, and is seen 
like a dark spot upon the vault of heaven. The 
same is true of all magnitude. The heavenly bo- 
dies appear small to the eye of an inhabitant of 
this earth, only from the immensity of their dis- 
tance. When we talk of hundreds of millions of 
miles, it is not to be listened to as incredible. For 
remember that we are talking of those bodies 
which are scattered over the immensity of space, 
and that space knows no termination. The con- 
ception is great and difficult, but the truth is un- 
questionable. By a process of measurement which 
it is unnecessary at present to explain, we have 
ascertained first the distance, and then the mag- 
nitude of some of those bodies which roll in the 
firmament ; that the sun, which presents itself to 
the eye under so diminutive a form, is really a 
globe, exceeding, by many thousands of times, 
the dimensions of the earth which we inhabit; 
that the moon itself has the magnitude of a world ; 
and that even a few of those stars, which appear 
like so many lucid points to the unassisted eye of 
the observer, expand into large circles upon the 
application of the telescope, and are some of them 
much larger than the ball which we tread upon, 
and to which we proudly apply the denomination 
of the universe. 



i 



24 



Now, what is the fair and obvious presumption ? 
The world in which we live, is a round ball of a 
determined magnitude, and occupies its own place 
in the firmament. But when we explore the un- 
limited tracts of that space, which is every where 
around us, we meet with other balls of equal or 
superior magnitude, and from which^our earth 
would either be invisible, or appear as small as 
any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the 
canopy of heaven. Why then suppose that this 
little spot, little at least in the immensity which 
surrounds it, should he the exclusive abode of life 
and of intelligence ? What reason to think that 
those mightier globes which roll in other parts of 
creation, and which we have discovered to be 
worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use 
and in dignity ? Why should we think that the 
great Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom as 
he is in power, would call these stately mansions 
into existence, and leave them unoccupied? When 
we cast our eye over the broad sea, and look at 
the country on the other side, we see nothing but 
the blue land stretching obscurely over the distant 
horizon. We are too far away to perceive the 
richness of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its 
population. Why not extend this principle to the 
still more distant parts of the universe ? What 
though, from this remote point of observation, we 
can see nothing but the naked roundness of yon 
planetary orbs ? Are we therefore to say, that they 



25 



are so many vast and unpeopled solitudes ; that 
desolation reigns in every part of the universe 
but ours ; that the whole energy of the divine at- 
tributes is expended on one insignificant corner of 
these mighty works ; and that to this earth alone 
belongs the bloom of vegetation, or the blessed- 
ness of life, or the dignity of rational and immor- 
tal existence ? 

But this is not all. We have something more 
than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege, 
in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We 
know that this earth turns round upon itself ; and 
we observe that all those celestial bodies, which 
are accessible to such an observation, have the 
same movement. We know that the earth per- 
forms a yearly revolution round the sun ; and we 
can detect in all the planets which compose our 
system, a revolution of the same kind, and under 
the same circumstances. They have the same 
succession of day and night. They have the same 
agreeable vicissitude of the seasons. To them, 
light and darkness succeed each other; and the 
gsijety of summer is followed by the dreariness of 
winter. To each of them the heavens present as 
varied and magnificent a spectacle ; and this earth, 
the encompassing of which would require the la- 
bour of years from one of its puny inhabitants, is 
but one of the lesser lights which sparkle in their 
firmament. To them, as well as to us, has God 
divided the light from the darkness, and he has 

d 



26 



called the light day, and the darkness he has call- 
ed night, He has said, let there be lights in the 
firmament of their heaven, to divide the day from 
the night; and let them be for signs, and for sea- 
sons, and for days, and for years ; and let them be 
for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give lights 
upon their earth ; and it was so. And God has 
also made to them great lights. To all of them 
he has given the sun to rule the day; and to many 
of them has he given moons to rule the night. To 
them he has made the stars also. And God has 
set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light 
unto their earth ; and to rule over the day, and 
over the night, and to divide the light from the 
darkness ; and God has seen that it was good. 

In all these greater arrangements of divine wis- 
dom, we can see that God has done the same 
things for the accommodation of the planets that 
he has done for the earth which we inhabit. And 
shall we say, that the resemblance stops here be- 
cause we are not in a situation to observe it ? 
Shall we say, that this scene of magnificence has 
been called into being merely for the amusement 
of a few astronomers? Shall we measure the 
counsels of heaven by the narrow impotence of the 
human faculties ? or conceive, that silence and 
solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of na- 
ture ; that the greater part of creation is an empty 
parade ; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity 



22 



is to be found through the wide extent of yon vast 
and immeasurable regions ? 

It lends a delightful confirmation to the argu- 
ment, when, from the growing perfection of our 
instruments, we can discover a new point of re- 
semblance between our Earth and the other bo- 
dies of the planetary system. It is now ascertain- 
ed, not merely that all of them have their day and 
night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes 
of seasons, and that some of them have their 
moons to rule their night and alleviate the dark- 
ness of it. We can see of one, that its surface 
rises into inequalities, that it swells into mountains 
and stretches into valleys ; of another, that it is 
surrounded by an atmosphere which may support 
the respiration of animals ; of a third, that clouds 
are formed and suspended over it, which may mi- 
nister to it all the bloom and luxuriance of vege- 
tation ; and of a fourth, that a white colour spreads 
over its northern regions, as its winter advances, 
and that on the approach of summer this white- 
ness is dissipated — giving room to suppose, that 
the element of water abounds in it, that it rises 
by evaporation into its asmosphere, that it freezes 
upon the application of cold, that it is precipitated 
in the form of snow, that it covers the ground w ith 
a fleecy mantle, which melts away from the heat 
of a more vertical sun ; and that other worlds 
bear a resemblance to our own, in the same year- 
ly round of beneficent and interesting changes. 



28 



Who shall assign a limit to the discoveries of 
Future ages? Who can prescribe to science her 
boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable 
curiosity of man within the circle of his present 
acquirements? We may guess with plausibility 
what we cannot anticipate with confidence. The 
day may yet be coming, when our instruments of 
observation shall be inconceivably more powerful. 
They may ascertain still more decisive points of 
resemblance. They may resolve the same ques- 
tion by the evidence of sense which is now so 
abundantly convincing by the evidence of analogy. 
They may lay open to us the unquestionable ves- 
tiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. We 
may see summer throwing its green mantle over 
these mighty tracts, and we may see them left 
naked and colourless after the flush of vegetation 
has disappeared. In the progress of years, or of 
centuries, we may trace the hand of cultivation 
spreading a* new aspect over some portion jf a 
planetary surface. Perhaps some large city, the 
metropolis of a mighty empire, may expand into 
a visible spot by the powers of some future tele- 
scope. Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a 
distant age, may enable him to construct the map 
of another world, and to lay down the surface of 
it in all its minute and topical varieties. But 
there is no end of conjecture, and to the men of 
other times we leave the full assurance of what 
we can assert with the highest probability, that 
yon planetary orbs are so many worlds, that they 



29 



teem with life, and that the mighty Being who 
presides in high authority over this scene of 
grandeur and astonishment, has there planted the 
worshippers of his glory. 

Did the discoveries of science stop here, we 
have enough to justify the exclamation of the 
Psalmist, " What is man that thou art mindful of 
him, or the son of man that thou shouldest deign 
to visit him ?" They widen the empire of creation 
far beyond the limits which were formerly assign- 
ed to it. They give us to see that yon sun, 
throned in the centre of his planetary system, 
gives light, and warmth, and the vicissitude of 
seasons, to an extent of surface, several hundreds 
of times greater than that of the earth which we 
inhabit. They lay open to us a number of worlds, 
rolling in their respective circles around this vast 
luminary — and prove, that the ball which we tread 
upon, with all its mighty burden of oceans and 
continents, instead of being distinguished from the 
others, is among the least of them ; and, from some 
of the more distant planets, would not occupy a 
visible point in the concave of their firmament 
They let us know, that though this mighty earth, 
with all its myriads of people, were to sink into 
annihilation, there are some worlds where an event 
so awful to us would be unnoticed and unknown, 
and others where it would be nothing more than 
the disappearance of a little star which had ceased 
from its twinkling. We should feel a sentiment of 



30 



modesty at this just but humiliating representa- 
tion. We should learn not to look on our earth 
as the universe of God, but one paltry and insig- 
nificant portion of it ; that it is only one of the 
many mansions which the Supreme Being has 
created for the accommodation of his worship- 
pers, and only one of the many worlds rolling in 
that flood of light which the sun pours around him 
to the outer limits of the planetary system. 

But is there nothing beyond these limits ? The 
planetary system has its boundary, but space has 
none ; and if we wing our fancy there, do we only 
travel through dark and unoccupied regions? 
There are only five, or at most six, of the plane- 
tary orbs visible to the naked eye. What, then, 
is that multitude of other lights which sparkle in 
our firmament, and fill the whole concave of hea- 
ven with innumerable splendours ? The planets 
are all attached to the sun; and, in circling around 
him, they do homage to that influence which binds 
them to perpetual attendance on this great lumi- 
nary. But the other stars do not own his do- 
minion. They do not circle around him. To all 
common observation, they remain immoveable; 
and each, like the independent sovereign of his 
own territory, appears to occupy the same inflexi- 
ble position in the regions of immensity. What 
can we make of them ? Shall we take our adven- 
turous flight to explore these dark and untravelled 
dominions? What mean these innumerable fires 



31 



lighted up in distant parts of the universe ? Are 
thej only made to shed a feeble glimmering over 
this little spot in the kingdom of nature ? or do 
they serve a purpose worthier of themselves, to 
light up other worlds, and give animation to other 
systems ? 

The first thing which strikes a scientific ob- 
server of the fixed stars, is their immeasurable 
distance. If the whole planetary system were 
lighted up into a globe of fire, it would exceed, by 
many millions of times, the magnitude of this 
world, and yet only appear a small lucid point 
from the nearesf of them. If a body were project- 
ed from the sun with the velocity of a cannon-ball, 
it would take hundreds of thousands of years be- 
fore it described that mighty interval which sepa- 
rates the nearest of the fixed stars from our sun 
and from our system. If this earth, which moves 
at more than the inconceivable velocity of a million 
and a half miles a day, were to be hurried from its 
orbit, and to take the same rapid flight over this 
immense tract, it would not have arrived at the 
termination of its journey, after taking all the time 
which has elapsed since the creation of the world. 
These are great numbers, and great calculations, 
and the mind feels its own impotency in attempt- 
ing to grasp them. We can state them in words. 
We can exhibit them in figures. We can demon- 
strate them by the powers of a most rigid and in- 
fallible geometry. But no human fancy can sum- 



32 



mon up a lively or an adequate conception — can 
roam in its ideal flight over this immeasurable 
largeness — can take in this mighty space in all its 
grandeur, and in all its immensity — can sweep the 
outer boundaries of such a creation — or lift itself 
up to the majesty of that great and invisible arm, 
on which all is suspended. 

But what can those stars be which are seated 
go far beyond the limits of our planetary system ? 
They must be masses of immense magnitude, or 
they could not be seen at the distance of place 
which they occupy. The light which they give 
must proceed from themselves, for the feeble re- 
flection of light from some other quarter, would not 
carry through such mighty tracts to the eye of an 
observer. A body may be visible in two ways. 
It may be visible from its own light, as the flame of 
a candle, or the brightness of a fire, or the bril- 
liancy of yonder glorious sun, which lightens all 
below, and is the lamp of the world. Or it may 
be visible from the light which falls upon it, as the 
body which receives its light from the taper that 
falls upon it — or the whole assemblage of objects 
on the surface of the earth, which appear only 
when the light of day rests upon them — or the 
moon, which, in that part of it that is towards the 
ran, gives out a silvery whiteness to the eye of the 
observer, while the other part forms a black and 
invisible space in the firmament — or as the planets, ■ 
which shine only because the sun shines upon 



ss 

them, and which, each of them, present the ap- 
pearance of a dark spot on the side that is turned 
away from it. Now apply this question to the 
fixed stars. Are they luminous of themselves, or 
do they derive their light from the sun, like the 
bodies of our planetary system? Think of their 
immense distance, and the solution of this ques- 
tion becomes evident. The sun, like any other 
body, must dwindle into a less apparent magnitude 
as you retire from it. At the prodigious distance 
even of the very nearest of the fixed stars, it must 
have shrunk into a small indivisible point. In 
short, it must have become a star itself, and could 
shed no more light than a single individual of those 
glimmering myriads, the whole assemblage of 
which cannot dissipate, and can scarcely alleviate 
the midnight darkness of our world. These stars 
are visible to us, not because the sun shines upon 
them, but because they shine of themselves, be- 
cause they are so many luminous bodies scattered 
over the tracts of immensity — in a word, because 
they are so many suns, each throned in the centre 
of his own dominions, and pouring a flood of 
light over his own portion of these unlimitable 
regions. 

At such an immense distance for observation, it 
is not to be supposed, that we can collect many 
points of resemblance between the fixed stars, and 
the solar star which forms the centre of our plane- 
tary system. There is one point of resemblance*, 

E 



however, which has not escaped the penetration 
of our astronomers. We know that our sun turns 
round upon himself, in a regular period of time. 
We also know, that there are dark spots scattered 
over his surface, which, though invisible to the 
naked eye, are perfectly noticeable by our instru- 
ments. If these spots existed in greater quantity 
upon one side than upon another, it would have 
the general effect of making that side darker, and 
the revolution of the sun must, in such a case, give 
us a brighter and a fainter side, by regular alterna- 
tions. Now, there are some of the fixed stars 
which present this appearance. They present us 
with periodical variations of light. From the 
splendour of a star of the first or second magni- 
tude, they fade away into some of the inferior 
magnitudes— and one, by becoming invisible, 
might give reason to apprehend that we had lost 
him altogether — but we can still recognize him by 
the telescope, till at length he re-appears ir his 
own place, and, after a regular lapse of so many 
days and hours, recovers his original brightness. 
Now, the fair inference from this is, that the fixed 
stars as they resemble our sun in being so many 
luminous masses of immense magnitude, they re- 
semble him in this also, that each of them turns 
round upon his own axis ; so that if any of them 
should have an inequality in the brightness of their 
sides, this revolution is rendered evident, by the 
regular variations in the degree of light which it 
undergoes. 



35 



Shall we say, then, of these vast luminaries, 
that they were created in vain ? Were they called 
into existence for no other purpose than to throw 
a tide of useless splendour over the solitudes of 
immensity ? Our sun is only one of these lumina- 
ries, and we know that he has worlds in his train. 
Why should we strip the rest of this princely at- 
tendance ? Why may not each of them be the cen- 
tre of his own system, and give light to his own 
worlds ? It is true that we see them not, but could 
the eye of man take its flight into those distant 
regions, it should lose sight of our little world, 
before it reached the outer limits of our system— 
the greater planets should disappear in their turn 
— before it had described a small portion of that 
abyss which separates us from the fixed stars, the 
sun should decline into a little spot, and all its 
splendid retinue of worlds be lost in the obscurity 
of distance — he should, at last, shrink into a small 
indivisible atom, and all that could be seen of this 
magnificent system, should be reduced to the glim- 
mering of a little star. Why resist any longer 
the grand and interesting conclusion? Each of 
these stars may be the token of a system as vast 
and as splendid as the one which we inhabit. 
Worlds roll in these distant regions; and these 
worlds must be the mansions of life and of intel» 
ligence. In yon gilded canopy of heaven we see 
the broad aspect of the universe, where each shin- 
ing point presents us with a sun, and each sun 
with a system of worlds — where the Divinity 



36 



reigns in all the grandeur of his attributes — where 
he peoples immensity with his wonders ; and tra- 
vels in the greatness of his strength through the 
dominions of one vast and unlimited monarchy. 

The contemplation has no limits. If we ask the 
number of suns and of systems, the unassisted eye 
of man can take in a thousand, and the best tele- 
scope which the genius of man has constructed can 
take in eighty millions. But why subject the do- 
minions of the universe to the eye of man, or to 
the powers of his genius ? Fancy may take its 
flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope. 
It may expatiate in the outer regions of all that is 
visible— and shall we have the boldness to say, 
that there is nothing there ? that the wonders of 
the Almighty are at an end, because we can no 
longer trace his footsteps ? that his omnipotence 
is exhausted, because human art can no longer 
follow him ? that the creative energy of God has 
sunk into repose, because the imagination is en- 
feebled by the magnitude of its efforts, and can 
keep no longer on the wing through those mighty 
tracts, which shoot far beyond what eye hath seen, 
or the heart of man hath conceived- — which sweep 
endlessly along, and merge into an awful and mys- 
terious infinity ? 

Before bringing to a close this rapid and imper- 
fect sketch of our modern astronomy, it may be 
right to advert to two points of interesting specu- 



37 



lation, both of which serve to magnify our con- 
ceptio s of the universe, and. of course, to give 
us a more affecting sense of the comparative in- 
significance of this our world. The first is sug- 
gested by the consideration, that, if a body be 
struck in the direction of its centre, it obtains, 
from this course, a progressive motion, but with- 
out any movement of revolution being at the same 
time impressed upon it. It simply goes forward, 
but does not turn round upon itself. But, again, 
should the stroke not be in the direction of the 
centre — should the line which joins the point of 
percussion to the centre, make an angle with that 
line in which the impulse was communicated, then 
the body is both made to go forward in space, and 
also to wheel upon its axis. In this way, each of 
our planets may have had their compound motion 
communicated to it by one single impulse ; and, 
on the other hand, if ever the rotatory motion be 
communicated by one blow, then the progressive 
motion must go along with it. In order to have the 
first motion without the second, there must be a 
twofold force applied to the body in opposite di- 
rections. It must be set agoing in the same way 
as a spinning-top, so as to revolve about an axis, 
and to keep unchanged its situation in space. 
The planets have both motions; and, therefore, 
may have received them by one and the same im- 
pulse. The sun, we are certain, has one of these 
motions. He has a movement of revolution. If 
spun round his axis by two opposite forces, one 



38 



on each side of him, he may have this movement, 
and retain an inflexible position in space. But, if 
this movement was given him by one stroke, he 
must have a progressive motion, along with a 
whirling motion ; or, in other words, he is moving 
forward ; he is describing a tract in space ; and, 
in so doing, he carries all his planets and all their 
secondaries along with him. 

But, at this stage of the argument, the matter 
only remains a conjectural point of speculation. 
The sun may have had his rotation impressed 
upon him by a spinning impulse ; or, without re- 
curring to secondary causes at all, this movement 
may be coeval with his being, and he may have 
derived both the one and the other from an imme- 
diate fiat of the Creator. But, there is an actually 
observed phenomenon of the heavens, which ad- 
vances the conjecture into a probability. In the 
course of ages, the stars ii> one quarter of the ce- 
lestial sphere are apparently receding from each 
other; and, in the opposite quarter, they are ap- 
parently drawing nearer to each other. If the 
sun be approaching the former quarter, and re- 
ceding from the latter, this phenomenon admits of 
an easy explanation, and we are furnished with a 
magnificent step in the scale of the Creator's work- 
manship. In the same manner as the planets 3 
with their satellites, revolve round the sun, may 
the sun, with all his tributaries, be moving, in com- 
mon with other stars, around some distant centre? 



39 



from which there emanates an influence to bind 
and to subordinate them all. They may be kept 
from approaching each other, by a centrifugal 
force; without which, the laws of attraction might 
consolidate, into one stupendous mass, all the dis- 
tinct globes of which the universe is composed. 
Our sun may, therefore, be only one member of a 
higher family — taking his part, along with millions 
of others, in some loftier system of mechanism, by 
which they are all subjected to one law, and to 
one arrangement — describing the sweep of such 
an orbit in space, and completing the mighty re- 
volution in such a period of time, as to reduce 
our planetary seasons, and our planetary move- 
ments, to a very humble and fractionary rank in 
the scale of a higher astronomy. There is room 
for all this in immensity ; and there is even argu- 
ment for all this, in the records of actual observa- 
tion; and, from the whole of this speculation, do 
we gather a new emphasis to the lesson, how 
minute is the place, and how secondary is the im- 
portance of our world, amid the glories of such a 
surrounding magnificence ! 

But, there is still another very interesting tract 
of speculation, which has been opened up to us 
by the more recent observations of astronomy. 
What we allude to, is the discovery of the nebulae* 
We allow that it is but a dim and indistinct light 
which this discovery has thrown upon the structure 
of the universe ; but still it has spread before the 



40 



eye of the mind a field of very wide and lofty 
contemplation. Anterior to this discovery, the 
universe might appear to have been composed of 
an indefinite number of suns, about equi-distant 
from each other, uniformly scattered over space, 
and each encompassed by such a planetary at- 
tendance as takes place in our own system. But, 
we have now reason to think, that, instead of 
lying uniformly, and in a state of equi-distance 
from each other, they are arranged into distinct 
clusters — that, in the same manner as the distance 
of the nearest fixed stars, so inconceivably superior 
to that of our planets from each other, marks the 
separation of the solar systems, so the distance of 
two contiguous clusters may be so inconceivably 
superior to the reciprocal distance of those fixed 
stars which belong to the same cluster, as to mark 
an equally distinct separation of the clusters, and 
to constitute each of them an individual member 
of some higher and more extended arrangement 
This carries us upwards through ano f her ascend- 
ing step in the scale of magnificence, and there 
leaves us wildering in the uncertainty, whether 
even here the wonderful progression is ended; 
and, at all events, fixes the assured conclusion in 
our minds, that, to an eye which could spread 
itself over the whole, the mansion which accom- 
modates our species might be so very small as to 
lie wrapped in microscopical concealment ; and, 
in reference to the only Being who possesses this 



41 



universal eye, well might we say, 44 What is man 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
that thou shouldest deign to visit him ?" 

And, after all, though it he a mighty and diffi- 
cult conception, yet who can question it ? What 
is seen may be nothing to what is unseen ; for 
what is seen is limited by the range of our instru- 
ments. What is unseen has no limit; and, though 
all which the eye of man can take in, or bis fancy 
can grasp at, were swept away, there might still 
remain as ample a field, over which the Divinity 
may expatiate, and which he may have peopled 
with innumerable worlds. If the whole visible 
creation were to disappear, it would leave a soli- 
tude behind it — but to the Infinite Mind, that can 
take in the whole system of nature, this solitude 
might be nothing; a small unoccupied point in 
that immensity which surrounds it, and which he 
may have filled with the wonders of his omnipo- 
tence. Though this earth were to be burned up, 
though the trumpet of its dissolution were sound- 
ed, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, 
and every visible glory, which the finger of the 
Divinity has inscribed on it, were to be put out 
for ever — an event so awful to us, and to every 
world in our vicinity, by which so many suns 
would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes 
of life and of population would rush into forgetful- 
ness — what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's 
workmanship ? a mere shred, which, though scat- 

F 



42 



tered into nothing, would leave the universe of 
God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. 
Though this earth, and these heavens, were to 
disappear, there are other worlds, which roll 
afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; 
and the sky which mantles them, is garnished 
with other stars. Is it presumption to say, that 
the moral world extends to these distant and un- 
known regions ? that they are occupied with peo- 
ple ? that the charities of home and of neighbour- 
hood flourish there ? that the praises of God are 
there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in ? that 
piety has its temples and its offerings? and the 
richness of the divine attributes is there felt and 
admired by intelligent worshippers ? 

And what is this world in the immensity which 
teems with them — and what are they who occupy 
it ? The universe at large would suffer as little, in 
its splendour and variety, by the destruction of 
our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude 
of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single 
leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which sup- 
ports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest ac- 
cident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, 
and it lights on the stream of water which passes 
underneath. In a moment of time, the life, which 
we know, by the microscope, it teems with, is 
extinguished ; and, an occurrence so insignificant 
in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observa- 
tion, carries in it, to the myriads which people 



43 



this little leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive 
as the destruction of a world. Now, on the grand 
scale of the universe, we, the occupiers of this 
ball, which performs its little round among the 
suns and the systems that astronomy has unfold- 
ed — we may feel the same littleness, and the 
same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only in 
this circumstance, that it would require the ope- 
ration of greater elements to destroy us. But 
these elements exist. The fire which rages within, 
may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our 
planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting 
volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter 
in the bowels of the earth— and it lies within the 
agency of known substances to accomplish this— 
may explode it into fragments. The exhalation 
of noxious air from below, may impart a virulence 
to the air that is around us ; it may affect the 
delicate proportion of its ingredients; and the 
whole of animated nature may wither and die 
under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A 
blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its 
orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition 
has conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with 
precision the consequences of an event which 
every astronomer must know to lie within the 
limits of chance and probability. It may hurry 
our globe towards the sun — or drag it to the outer 
regions of the planetary system — or give it a new 
axis of revolution — and the effect, which I shall 
simply announce, without explaining it, would be 



44 



to change the place of the ocean, and bring ano- 
ther mighty flood upon our islands and continents. 
These are changes which may happen in a single 
instant of time, and against which nothing known 
in the present system of things provides us with 
any security. They might not annihilate the 
earth, but they would unpeople it; and we who 
tread its surface with such firm and assured foot- 
steps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, 
which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the 
Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and 
death, over the dominions of the world- 

Now, it is this littleness, and this insecurity 
which make the protection of the Almighty so dear 
to us, and bring, with such emphasis, to every 
pious bosom, the holy lessons of humility and gra- 
titude. The God who sitteth above, and presides 
in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of 
man ; and, though at this moment his energy is 
felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may 
feel the same security in his providence, as if we 
were the objects of his undivided care. It is not 
for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious 
agency. But, such is the incomprehensible fact, 
that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the 
whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of 
grass, and motion to every particle of blood which 
circulates through the veins of the minutest ani- 
mal ; that, though his mind takes into its compre- 
hensive grasp, immensity and all its wonders, I 



4-5 



am as much known to him as if I were the single 
object of his attention; that he marks all my 
thoughts ; that he gives birth to every feeling and 
every movement within me ; and that, with an ex- 
ercise of pow er which I can neither describe nor 
comprehend, the same God who sits in the highest 
heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firma- 
ment, is at my right hand, to give me every breath 
which I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy. 

But this very reflection has been appropriated 
to the use of Infidelity, and the very language of 
the text has been made to bear an application of 
hostility to the faith. " What is man, that God 
should be mindful of him, or the son of man, that 
he should deign to visit him ?" Is it likely, says 
the Infidel, that God would send his eternal Son, 
to die for the puny occupiers of so insignificant a 
province in the mighty field of his creation ? Are 
we the befitting objects of so great and so signal 
an interposition ? Does not the largeness of that 
field which astronomy lays open to the view of 
modern science, throw a suspicion over the truth 
of the gospel history ; and how shall we reconcile 
the greatness of that wonderful movement which 
was made in heaven for the redemption of fallen 
man, with the comparative meanness and obscu- 
rity of our species ? 

This is a popular argument against Christianity, 
not much dwelt upon in books, but we believe, a 



t 

46 

good deal insinuated in conversation, and having 
no small influence on the amateurs of a superficial 
philosophy. At all events, it is right that every 
such argument should be met, and manfully con- 
fronted; nor do we know a more discreditable 
surrender of our religion, than to act as if she had 
any thing to fear from the ingenuity of her most 
accomplished adversaries. The author of the 
following treatise, engages in his present under- 
taking, under the full impression, that a something 
may be found with which to combat Infidelity in 
all its forms ; that the truth of God and of his 
message, admits of a noble and decisive manifes- 
tation, through every mist which the pride, or the 
prejudice, or the sophistry of man may throw 
around it; and elevated as the wisdom of him may 
be, who has ascended the heights of science, and 
poured the light of demonstration over the most 
wondrous of nature's mysteries, that even out of 
his own principles, it may be proved how much 
more elevated is the wisdom of him who sits with 
the docility of a little child, to his Bible, and casts 
down to its authority, all his lofty imaginations. 



DISCOURSE II. 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



" And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he know- 
eth nothing yet as he ought to know." — 1 Cor. viii. 2. 

There is much profound and important wis- 
dom in that proverb of Solomon, where it is said, 
that the heart knoweth its own bitterness. It forms 
part of a truth still more comprehensive, that 
every man knoweth his own peculiar feelings, and 
difficulties, and trials, far better than he can get 
any of his neighbours to perceive them. It is 
natural to us all, that we should desire to engross, 
to the uttermost, the sympathy of others with what 
is most painful to the sensibilities of our own 
bosom, and with what is most aggravating in the 
hardships of our own situation. But, labour it as 
we may, we cannot, with every power of expres- 
sion, make an adequate conveyance, as it were, of 
all our sensations, and of all our circumstances^ 
into another understanding. There is a some- 
thing in the intimacy of a man's own experience, 
which he cannot make to pass entire into the 



48 



heart and mind even of his most familiar com- 
panion — and thus it is, that he is so often defeated 
in his attempts to obtain a full and a cordial pos- 
session of his sympathy. He is mortified, and he 
wonders at the obtuseness of the people around 
hi m — and how he cannot get them to enter into 
the justness of his complainings — nor to feel the 
point upon which turn the truth and the reason of 
his remonstrances — nor to give their interested 
attention to the case of his peculiarities and of his 
wrongs — nor to kindle, in generous resentment, 
along with him, when he starts the topic of his 
indignation. He does not reflect, all the while, 
that, with every human being he addresses, there 
is an inner man, which forms a theatre of passions, 
and of interests, as busy, as crowded, and as fitted 
as his own to engross the anxious and the exer- 
cised feelings of a heart, which can alone under- 
stand its own bitterness, and lay a correct estimate 
on the burden of its own visitations. Every man 
we meet, carries about with him, in the unper- 
ceived solitude of his bosom, a little world of his 
own — and we are just as blind, and as insensible, and 
as dull, both of perception and of sympathy about 
his engrossing objects, as he is about ours; and, 
did we suffer this observation to have all its weight 
upon us, it might serve to make us more candid, 
and more considerate of others. It might serve 
to abate the monopolizing selfishness of our na- 
ture. It might serve to soften down all the malig- 
nity which comes out of those envious contempla- 



49 



tions that we are so apt to cast on the fancied 
ease and prosperity which are around us. It 
might serve to reconcile every man to his own 
lot, and dispose him to bear, with thankfulness? 
his own burden ; and sure I am, if this train of 
sentiment were prosecuted with firmness, and 
calmness, and impartiality, it would lead to the 
conclusion, that each profession in life has its own 
peculiar pains, and its own besetting inconve- 
niences ; that, from the very bottom of society, up 
to the golden pinnacle which blazons upon its 
summit, there is much in the shape of care and of 
suffering to be found — that, throughout all the eon- 
ceivable varieties of human condition, there are 
trials, which can neither be adequately told on 
the one side, nor fully understood on the other— 
that the ways of God to man are as equal in this, 
as in every department of his administration — and 
that, go to whatever quarter of human experience 
we may, we shall find how he has provided enough 
to exercise the patience, and to accomplish the 
purposes of a wise and a salutary discipline upon 
all his children. 

I have brought forward this observation, that it 
may prepare the way for a second. There are 
perhaps no two sets of human beings, who com- 
prehend less the movements, and enter less into 
the cares and concerns of each other, than the 
wide and busy public on the one hand ; and, on 
the other, those men of close and studious retire- 

o 



50 

ment, whom the world never hears of, save when, 
from their thoughtful solitude, there issues forth 
some splendid discovery, to set the world on a 
gaze of admiration. Then will the brilliancy of 
a superior genius draw every eye towards it — and 
the homage paid to intellectual superiority, will 
place its idol on a loftier eminence than all wealth 
or than all titles can bestow—and the name of the 
successful philosopher will circulate, in his own 
age, over the whole extent of civilized society, 
and be borne down to posterity in the characters 
of ever-during remembrance—and thus it is, that, 
when we look back on the days of Newton, we 
annex a kind of mysterious greatness to him, who, 
by the pure force of his understanding, rose to 
such a gigantic elevation above the level of ordi- 
nary men — and the kings and warriors of other 
days sink into insignificance around him ; and he, 
at this moment, stands forth to the public eye, in 
a prouder array of glory than circles the memory 
of all the men of former generations — and, while 
all the vulgar grandeur of other days is now moul- 
dering in forgetfulness, the achievements of our 
great astronomer are still fresh in the veneration 
of his countrymen, and they carry him forward on 
the stream of time, with a reputation ever gather- 
ing, and the triumphs of a distinction that will 
never die. 



Now, the point that I want to impress upon you 
is, that the same public, who are so dazzled and 



51 



overborne by the lustre of all this superiority, are 
utterly in the dark as to what that is which confers 
its chief merit on the philosophy of Newton. They 
see the result of his labours, but they know not 
how to appreciate the difficulty or the extent of 
them. They look on the stately edifice he has 
reared, but they know not what he had to do in 
settling the foundation which gives to it all its sta- 
bility — nor are they aware what painful encoun- 
ters he had to make, both with the natural predi- 
lections of his own heart, and with the prejudices 
of others, when employed on the work of laying 
together its unperishing materials. They have 
never heard of the controversies which this man, 
of peaceful unambitious modesty, had to sustain, 
with all that was proud, and all that was intolerant 
in the philosophy of the age. They have never, 
in thought, entered that closet which was the scene 
of his patient and profound exercises — nor have 
they gone along with him, as he gave his silent 
hours to the labours of the midnight oil, and plied 
that unwearied task, to which the charm of lofty 
contemplation had allured him- — nor have they ac- 
companied him through all the workings of that 
wonderful mind, from which, as from the recesses 
©f a laboratory, there came forth such gleams and 
processes of thought as shed an eflfulgency over 
the whole amplitude of nature. All this, the pub- 
lic have not done ; for of this the great majority* 
even of the reading and cultivated public, are ut- 
terly incapable ; and therefore is it that they need 



52 



io be told what that is, in which the main dis- 
tinction of his philosophy lies ; that, when labour 
ing in other fields of investigation, they may know 
how to borrow from his safe example, and how to 
profit by that superior wisdom which marked the 
whole conduct of his understanding. 

Let it be understood, then, that they are the 
positive discoveries of Newton, which, in the eye 
of a superficial public, confer upon him all his re- 
putation. He discovered the mechanism of the 
planetary system. He discovered the composition 
of light. He discovered the cause of those alter- 
nate movements which take place on the waters 
of the ocean. These form his actual and his vi- 
sible achievements. These are what the world 
look at as the monuments of his greatness. These 
are doctrines by which he has enriched the field 
of philosophy ; and thus it is that the whole of his 
merit is supposed to lie in having had the sagacity 
to perceive, and the vigour to lay hold of the 
proofs, which conferred upon these doctrines all 
the establishment of a most rigid and conclusive 
demonstration. 

But, while he gets all his credit, and all his ad- 
miration for those articles of science which he has 
added to the creed of philosophers, he deserves 
as much credit and admiration for those articles 
which he kept out of this creed, as for those which 
he introduced into it. It was the property of his 



53 

mind, that it kept a tenacious hold of every one 
position which had proof to substantiate it — but it 
forms a property equally characteristic, and which, 
in fact, gives its leading peculiarity to the whole 
spirit and style of his investigations, that he put a 
most determined exclusion on every one position 
that was destitute of such proof. He would not 
admit the astronomical theories of those who went 
before him, because they had no proof. He would 
not give in to their notions about the planets 
wheeling their rounds in whirlpools of ether — for 
he did not see this ether — he had no proof of its 
existence — and, besides, even supposing it to 
exist, it would not have impressed, on the heavenly 
bodies, such movements as met his observation. 
He would not submit his judgment to the reigning 
systems of the day — for, though they had autho- 
rity to recommend them, they had no proof; and 
thus it is, that he evinced the strength and the 
soundness of his philosophy, as much by his de- 
cisions upon those doctrines of science which he 
rejected, as by his demonstration of those doc- 
trines of science which he was the first to propose, 
and which now stand out to the eye of posterity 
as the only monuments to the force and superiority 
of his understanding. 

He wanted no other recommendation for any 
one article of science, than the recommenda- 
tion of evidence — and, with this recommenda- 



54 



tion, he opened to it the chamber of his mind, 
though authority scowled upon it, and taste was 
disgusted by it, and fashion was ashamed of it, 
and all the beauteous speculation of former days 
was cruelly broken up by this new announcement 
of the better philosophy, and scattered like the 
fragments of an aerial vision, over which the past 
generations of the world had been slumbering 
their profound and their pleasing reverie. But, 
on the other hand, should the article of science 
want the recommendation of evidence, he shut 
against it all the avenues of his understanding — - 
aye, and though all antiquity lent their suffrages 
to it, and all eloquence had thrown around it the 
most attractive brilliancy, and all habit had incor- 
porated it with every system of every seminary in 
Europe, and all fancy had arrayed it in graces of 
the most tempting solicitation ; yet was the steady 
and inflexible mind of Newton proof against this 
whole weight of authority and allurement, and, 
casting his cold and unwelcome look at the spe- 
cious plausibility, he rebuked it from his presence. 
The strength of his philosophy lay as much in re- 
fusing admittance to that which wanted evidence, 
as in giving a place and an occupancy to that 
which possessed it. In that march of intellect, 
which led him onwards through the rich and mag- 
nificent field of his discoveries, he pondered every 
step; and, while he advanced with a firm and 
assured movement, wherever the light of evidence 



55 



carried him, he never suffered any glare of imagi- 
nation or of prejudice to seduce him from his 
path. 

Sure I am, that, in the prosecution of his won- 
derful career, he found himself on a way beset 
with temptation upon every side of him. It was 
not merely that he had the reigning taste and phi- 
losophy of the times to contend with; but, he 
expatiated on a lofty region, where, in all the gid- 
diness of success, he might have met with much 
to solicit his fancy, and tempt him to some devious 
speculation. Had he been like the majority of 
other men, he would have broken free from the 
fetters of a sober and chastised understanding, 
and, giving wing to his imagination, had done 
what philosophers have done after him — been 
carried away by some meteor of their own form- 
ing, or found their amusement in some of their 
own intellectual pictures, or palmed some loose and 
confident plausibilities of their own upon the world. 
But Newton stood true to his principle, that 
he would take up with nothing which wanted evi- 
dence, and he kept by his demonstrations, and his 
measurements, and his proofs ; and, if it be true 
that he who ruleth his own spirit is greater than 
he who taketh a city, there was won, in the soli- 
tude of his chamber, many a repeated victory 
over himself, which should give a brighter lustre 
to his name than all the conquests he has made on 



56 



the field of discovery, or than all the splendour 
of his positive achievements. 

I trust you understand, how, though it be one of 
the maxims of the true philosophy, never to shrink 
from a doctrine which has evidence on its side, it 
is another maxim, equally essential to it, never to 
harbour any doctrine when this evidence is want- 
ing. Take these two maxims along with you, and 
you will be at no loss to explain the peculiarity* 
which, more than any other, goes both to charac- 
terise and to ennoble the philosophy of Newton. 
What I allude to is, the precious combination of 
its strength and of its modesty. On the one hand, 
what greater evidence of strength than the fulfil- 
ment of that mighty enterprise, by which the hea- 
vens have been made its own, and the mechanism 
of unnumbered worlds has been brought within 
the grasp of the human understanding? Now, it 
was by walking in the light of sound and compe- 
tent evidence, that all this was accomplished. It 
was by the patient, the strenuous, the unfaultering 
application of the legitimate instruments of disco- 
very. It was by touching that which was tangi- 
ble, and looking to that which was visible, and 
computing that which was measurable, and in one 
word, by making a right and a reasonable use of 
all that proof which the field of nature around us 
has brought within the limit of sensible observa- 
tion. This is the arena on which the modem 



r 



57 



philosophy has won all her victories, and fulfilled 
all her wondrous achievements, and reared all 
her proud and enduring monuments, and gathered 
all her magnificent trophies to that power of in- 
tellect with which the hand of a bounteous hea- 
ven has so richly gifted the constitution of our 
species. 

But, on the other hand, go beyond the limits of 
sensible observation, and, from that moment, the 
genuine disciples of this enlightened school cast 
all their confidence and all their intrepidity away 
from them. Keep them on the firm ground of ex- 
periment, and none more bold and more decisive 
in their announcements of all that they have evi- 
dence for — but, off this ground, none more hum- 
ble, or more cautious of any thing like positive an- 
nouncements, than they. They choose neither to 
know, nor to believe, nor to assert, where evi- 
dence is wanting ; and they will sit, with all the 
patience of a scholar to his task, till they have 
found it. They are utter strangers to that haughty 
confidence with which some philosophers of the 
day sport the plausibilities of unauthorized specu- 
lation, and by which, unmindful of the limit that 
separates the region of sense from the region of 
conjecture, they make their blind and their im- 
petuous inroads into a province which does not 
belong to them. There is no one object to which 
the exercised mind of a true Newtonian disciple 
is more familiarized than this limit, and it serves 

H 



58 



as a boundary by which he shapes, and bounds, 
and regulates, all the enterprises of his philoso- 
phy. All the space which lies within this limit, 
he cultivates to the uttermost, and it is by such 
successive labours, that every year which rolls 
over the world, is witnessing some new contribu- 
tion to experimental science, and adding to the 
solidity and aggrandizement of this wonderful 
fabric. But, if true to their own principle, then, 
in reference to the forbidden ground which lies 
without this limit, those very men, who, on the 
field of warranted exertion, evinced all the hardi- 
hood and vigour of a full grown understanding, 
show, on every subject where the light of evidence 
is withheld from them, all the modesty of chil- 
dren. They give you positive opinion only when 
they have indisputable proof— but, when they 
have no such proof, then they have no such 
opinion. The single principle of their respect to 
truth, secures their homage for every one position, 
where the evidence of truth is present, and, at 
the same time, begets an entire diffidence about 
every one position, from which this evidence is 
disjoined. And thus you may understand, how 
the first man in the accomplishments of philoso- 
phy, which the world ever saw, sat at the book of 
nature in the humble attitude of its interpreter 
and its pupil — how all the docility of conscious 
ignorance threw a sweet and softening lustre 
around the radiance even of his most splendid 
discoveries — and, while the flippancy of a few 



59 

superficial acquirements is enough to place a phi- 
losopher of the day on the pedestal of his fancied 
elevation, and to vest him with an assumed lord- 
ship over the whole domain of natural and re- 
vealed knowledge ; I cannot forbear to do honour 
to the unpretending greatness of Newton, than 
whom I know not if there ever lighted on the face 
of our world, one in the character of whose admi- 
rable genius so much force and so much humility 
were more attractively blended. 

I now propose to carry you forward, by a few 
simple illustrations, to the argument of this day. 
All the sublime truths of the modern astronomy 
lie within the field of actual observation, and 
have the firm evidence to rest upon of all that 
information which is conveyed to us by the avenue 
of the senses. Sir Isaac Newton never went be- 
yond this field, without a reverential impression 
upon his mind, of the precariousncss of the ground 
on which he was standing. On this ground, he 
never ventured a positive affirmation — but, re- 
signing the lofty tone of demonstration, and put- 
ting on the modesty of conscious ignorance, he 
brought forward all he had to say in the humble 
form of a doubt, or a conjecture, or a question. 
But, what he had not confidence to do, other phi- 
losophers have done after him— and they have 
winged their audacious way into forbidden re- 
gions — and they have crossed that circle by which 
the field of observation is enclosed — and there 



60 



have they debated and dogmatized with all the 
pride of a most intolerant assurance. 

Now, though the case be imaginary, let us con- 
ceive, for the sake of illustration, that one of these 
philosophers made so extravagant a departure 
from the sobriety of experimental science, as to 
pass from the astronomy of the different planets, 
and to attempt the natural history of their animal 
and vegetable kingdoms. He might get hold of 
some vague and general analogies, to throw an 
air of plausibility around his speculation. He 
might pass from the botany of the different re- 
gions of the globe that we inhabit, and make his 
loose and confident application to each of the 
other planets, according to its distance from the 
sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of 
its annual revolution; and out of some such slen- 
der materials, he may work up an amusing philo- 
sophical romance, full of ingenuity, and having, 
withal, the colour of truth and of consistency 
spread over it. 

I can conceive how a superficial public might 
be delighted by the eloquence of such a compo- 
sition, and even be impressed by its arguments ; 
but were I asked, which is the man of all the ages 
and countries in the world, who would have the 
least respect for this treatise upon the plants 
which grew on the surface of Jupiter, I should be 
at no loss to answer the question. I should say* 



61 



that it would be he who had computed the mo- 
tions of Jupiter— that it would be he who had 
measured the bulk and the density of Jupiter — 
that it would be he who had estimated the periods 
of Jupiter — that it would be he whose observant 
eye and patiently calculating mind, had traced the 
satellites of Jupiter through all the rounds of 
their mazy circulation, and unravelled the intricacy 
of all their movements. He would see at once 
that the subject lay at a hopeless distance beyond 
the field of legitimate observation. It would be 
quite enough for him, that it was beyond the range 
of his telescope. On this ground, and on this 
ground only, would he reject it as one of the pu- 
niest imbecilities of childhood. As to any cha- 
racter of truth or of importance, it would have 
no more effect on such a mind as that of Newton, 
than any illusion of poeti^v ; and from the emi- 
nence of his intellectual throne, would he cast a 
penetrating glance at the whole speculation, and 
bid its gaudy insignificance away from him. 

But let us pass onward to another case, which, 
though as imaginary as the former, may still serve 
the purpose of illustration. 

This same adventurous philosopher may be 
conceived to shift his speculation from the plants 
of another world, to the character of its inhabit- 
ants. He may avail himself of some slender cor- 
respondencies between the heat of the sun and the 



62 



moral temperament of the people it shines upon. 
He may work up a theory, which carries on the 
front of it some of the characters of plausibility : 
but surely it does not require the philosophy of 
Newton to demonstrate the folly of such an enter- 
prise. There is not a man of plain understanding, 
who does not perceive that this said ambitious 
inquirer has got without his reach — that he has 
stepped beyond the field of experience, and is 
now expatiating on the field of imagination — that 
he has ventured on a dark unknown, where the 
wisest of all philosophy, is the philosophy of si- 
lence, and a profession of ignorance is the best 
evidence of a solid understanding ; that if he think 
he knows any thing on such a subject as this, he 
knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. He 
knows not what Newton knew, and what he kept 
a steady eye upon throifghout the whole march of 
his sublime investigations. He knows not the 
limit of his own faculties. He has overleaped the 
barrier which hems in all the possibilities of hu- 
man attainment. He has wantonly flung himself 
off from the safe and firm field of observation, and 
got on that undiscoverable ground, where, by 
every step he takes, he widens his distance from 
the true philosophy, and by every affirmation he 
utters, he rebels against the authority of all its 
maxims. 

I can conceive it the feeling of every one of 
you, that I have hitherto indulged in a vain ex- 



63 



pense of argument, and it is most natural for you 
to put the question, " What is the precise point 
of convergence to which I am directing all the 
light of this abundant and seemingly superfluous 
illustration ?" 

In the astronomical objection which Infidelity 
has proposed against the truth of the Christian 
revelation, there is first an assertion, and then an 
argument. The assertion is, that Christianity is 
set up for the exclusive benefit of our minute and 
solitary world. The argument is, that Cod would 
not lavish such a quantity of attention on so insig- 
nificant a field. Even though the assertion were 
admitted, I should have a quarrel with the argu- 
ment. But the futility of the objection is not laid 
open in all its extent, unless we expose the utter 
want of all essential evidence even for the truth of 
the assertion. How do infidels know that Chris- 
tianity is set up for the single benefit of this earth 
and its inhabitants? How are they able to tell 
us, that if you go to other planets, the person and 
the religion of Jesus are there unknown to them ? 
We challenge them to the proof of this said posi- 
tive announcement of theirs. We see in this ob- 
jection the same rash and gratuitous procedure, 
which was so apparent in the two cases that we 
have already advanced for the purpose of illus- 
tration. We see in it the same glaring transgres- 
sion on the spirit and the maxims of that very phi- 



64 



losophy which they profess to idolize. They have 
made their argument against us, out of an assertion 
which has positively no feet to rest upon — an as- 
sertion which they have no means whatever of ve- 
rifying — an assertion, the truth or the falsehood of 
which can only be gathered out of some superna- 
tural message, for it lies completely beyond the 
range of human observation. It is willingly ad- 
mitted, that by an attempt at the botany of other 
worlds, the true method of philosophizing is tram- 
pled on; for this is a subject that lies beyond the 
range of actual observation, and every perform- 
ance upon it must be made up of assertions with- 
out proofs. It is also willingly admitted, that an 
attempt at the civil and political history of their 
people, would be an equally extravagant depar- 
ture from the spirit of the true philosophy ; for 
this also lies beyond the field of actual obser- 
vation; and all that could possibly be mustered 
up on such a subject as this, would still be as- 
sertions without proofs. Now, the theology of 
these planets is, in every way, as inaccessible a 
subject as their politics or their natural history; 
and therefore it is, that the objection, grounded 
on the confident assumption of those infidel astro- 
nomers, who assert Christianity to be the religion 
of this one world, or that the religion of these 
other worlds is not our very Christianity, can have 
no influence on a mind that has derived its habits 
of thinking from the pure and rigorous school of 



65 



Newton: for the whole of this assertion is just as 
glaringly destitute, as in the two former instances? 
of proof. 

The man who could embark in an enterprise so 
foolish and so fanciful, as to theorise it on the de- 
tails of the botany of another world, or to theo- 
rise it on the natural and moral history of its peo- 
ple, is just making as outrageous a departure from 
all sense, and all science, and all sobriety, when 
he presumes to speculate, or to assert on the de- 
tails or the methods of God's administration among 
its rational and accountable inhabitants. He 
wings his fancy to as hazardous a region, and 
vainly strives a penetrating vision through the 
mantle of as deep an obscurity. All the elements 
of such a speculation are hidden from him. For 
any thing he can tell, sin has found its way into 
these other worlds. For any thing he can tell, 
their people have banished themselves from com- 
munion with God. For any thing he can tell, many 
a visit has been made to each of them, on the sub- 
ject of our common Christianity, by commissioned 
messengers from the throne of the Eternal. For 
any thing he can tell, the redemption proclaimed 
to us is not one solitary instance, or not the whole 
of that redemption which is by the Son of God — 
but only our part in a plan of mercy, equal in 
magnificence to all that astronomy has brought 
within the range of human contemplation. For 
any thing he can tell, the moral pestilence, which 

i 



66 



walks abroad over the face of our world, may hav€ 
spread its desolation over all the planets of all the 
systems, which the telescope has made known to 
us. For any thing he can tell, some mighty re- 
demption has been devised in heaven, to meet this 
disaster in the whole extent and malignity of its 
visitations. For any thing he can tell, the wonder- 
working God, who has strewed the field of im- 
mensity with so many worlds, and spread the shel- 
ter of his omnipotence over them, may have sent 
a message of love to each, and re-assured the 
hearts of its despairing people by some overpower- 
ing manifestation of tenderness. For any thing he 
can tell, angels from paradise may have sped to 
every planet their delegated way, and sung, from 
each azure canopy, a joyful annunciation, and 
said, " Peace be to this residence, and good will 
to all its families, and glory to Him in the highest, 
who, from the eminency of his throne, has issued 
an act of grace so magnificent, as to carry the 
tidings of life and of acceptance to the unnum- 
bered orbs of a sinful creation." For any thing 
he can tell, the Eternal Son, of whom it is said, 
that by him the worlds were created, may have 
had the government of many sinful worlds laid 
upon his shoulders; and by the power of his mys- 
terious word, have awoke them all from that spi- 
ritual death, to which they had sunk in lethargy 
as profound as the slumbers of non-existence. For 
any thing he can tell, the one Spirit who moved on 
the face of the waters, and whose presiding influ- 



( 



67 



ence it was that hushed the wild war of nature^ 
elements, and made a beauteous system emerge 
out of its disjointed materials, may now be work- 
ing with the fragments of another chaos; and 
educing order, and obedience, and harmony, out 
of the wrecks of a moral rebellion, which reaches 
through all these spheres, and spreads disorder 
to the uttermost limits of our astronomy. 

But, here I stop — nor shall I attempt to grope 
my dark and fatiguing way, by another inch, 
among such sublime and mysterious secrecies. It 
is not I who am offering to lift this curtain. It is 
not I who am pitching my adventurous flight to the 
secret things which belong to God, away from the 
things that are revealed, and which belong to me 
and to my children. It is the champion of that 
very Infidelity which I am now combating. It is 
he who props his unchristian argument, by pre- 
sumptions fetched out of those untravelled obscu- 
rities which lie on the other side of a barrier that 
I pronounce to be impassable. It is he who trans- 
gresses the limits which Newton forbore to enter ; 
because, with a justness which reigns throughout 
all his inquiries, he saw the limit of his own un- 
derstanding, nor would he venture himself beyond 
it. It is he who has borrowed from the philosophy 
of this wondrous man, a few dazzling conceptions, 
which have only served to bewilder him — while, 
an utter stranger to the spirit of this philosophy, 
lie has carried a daring and an ignorant specie 



68 

iation far beyond the boundary of its prescribed 
and allowable enterprises. It is he who has mus- 
tered against the truths of the Gospel, resting, as 
it does, on evidence within the reach of his facul- 
ties, an objection, for the truth of which he has no 
evidence whatever. It' is he who puts away from 
him a doctrine, for which he has the substantial 
and the familiar proof of human testimony ; and 
substitutes in its place a doctrine for which he can 
get no other support than from a reverie of his own 
imagination. It is he who turns aside from all that 
safe and certain argument, that is supplied by the 
history of this world, of which he knows some- 
thing ; and who loses himself in the work of theo- 
rizing about other worlds, of the moral and theo- 
logical history of which he positively knows no- 
thing. Upon him, and not upon us, lies the folly 
of launching his impetuous way beyond the pro- 
vince of observation — of letting his fancy afloat 
among the unknown of distant and mysterious re- 
gions ; and, by an act of daring, as impious as it 
is unphilosophical, of trying to unwrap that shroud, 
which, till drawn aside by the hand of a messen- 
ger from heaven, will ever veil, from human eye, 
the purposes of the Eternal. 

If you have gone along w ith me in the preced- 
ing observations, you will perceive how they are 
calculated to disarm of all its point, and of all its 
energy, that flippancy of Voltaire ; when, in the 
examples he gives of the dotage of the human un- 



69 

derstanding, he tells us of Bacon having believed 
in witchcraft, and Sir Isaac Newton having written 
a Commentary on the Book of Revelation. The 
former instance we shall not undertake to vindi- 
cate ; but in the latter instance, we perceive what 
this brilliant and spacious, but withal superficial, 
apostle of Infidelity, either did not see, or refused 
to acknowledge. We see in this intellectual la- 
bour of our great philosopher^the working of the 
very same principles which carried him through 
the profoundest and the most successful of his in- 
vestigations ; and how he kept most sacredly and 
most consistently by those very maxims, the au- 
thority of which he, even in the full vigour and 
manhood of his faculties, ever recognized. We 
see in the theology of Newton, the very spirit and 
principle which gave all its stability, and all its 
sureness, to the philosophy of Newton. We see 
the same tenacious adherence to every one doc- 
trine, that had such valid proof to uphold it, as 
could be gathered from the field of human expe- 
rience; and we see the same firm resistance of 
every one argument, that had nothing to^ recom- 
, mend it, but such plausibilities as could easily be 
devised by the genius of man, when he expatiated 
abroad on those fields of creation which the eye 
never witnessed, and from which no messenger 
ever came to us with any credible information. 
Now, it was on the former of these two principles 
that Newton clung so determinedly to his Bible, as 
the record of an actual annunciation from God to 



70 



fhe inhabitants of this world. When he turned 
his attention to this book, he came to it with a 
inind tutored to the philosophy of facts — and, 
when he looked at its credentials, he saw the 
stamp and the impress of this philosophy on every 
one of them. He saw the fact of Christ being a 
messenger from heaven, in the audible language 
by which it was conveyed from heaven's canopy 
to human ears. He saw the fact of his being an 
approved ambassador of God, in those miracles 
which carried their own resistless evidence along 
with them to human eyes. He saw the truth of 
this whole history brought home to his own convic- 
tion, by a sound and substantial vehicle of human 
testimony. He saw the reality of that supernatural 
light; which inspired the prophecies he himself il- 
lustrated, by such an agreement with the events of 
a various and distant futurity as could be taken 
cognizance of by human observation. He saw 
the wisdom of God pervading the whole substance 
©f the written message, in such manifold adapta- 
tions to the circumstances of man, and to the 
whole secrecy of his thoughts, and his affections, 
and his spiritual wants, and his moral sensibilities, 
as even in the mind of an ordinary and unlettered 
peasant, can be attested by human consciousness. 
These formed the solid materials of the basis on 
which our experimental philosopher stood; and 
there was nothing in the whole compass of his 
own astronomy to dazzle him away from it ; and 
he was too well aware of the limit between what 



71 



be knew, and what he did not know, to be se- 
duced from the ground he had taken, by any of 
those brilliances which have since led so many of 
his humbler successors into the track of Infidelity. 
He had measured the distances of these planets. 
He had calculated their periods. He had esti- 
mated their figures, and their bulk, and their den- 
sities, and he had subordinated the whole intri- 
cacy of their movements to the simple and sublime 
agency of one commanding principle. But he 
had too much of the ballast of a substantial un- 
derstanding about him, to be thrown afloat by all 
this success among the plausibilities of wanton 
and unauthorized speculation. He knew the 
boundary which hemmed him. He knew that he 
had not thrown one particle of light on the moral 
or religious history of these planetary regions. 
He had not ascertained what visits of communi- 
cation they received from the God who upholds 
them. But he knew that the fact of a real visit 
made to this planet, had such evidence to rest 
upon, that it was not to be disposted by any aerial 
imagination. And when I look at the steady and 
unmoved Christianity of this wonderful man ; so 
far from seeing any symptom of dotage and imbe- 
cility, or any forgetfulness of those principles on 
which the fabric of his philosophy is reared ; do 
I see, that in sitting down to the work of a Bible 
Commentator, he hath given us their most beautip 
ful and most consistent exemplification. 



72 



I did not anticipate such a length of time, and 
of illustration, in this stage of my argument. But 
I will not regret it, if I have familiarized the 
minds of any of my readers to the reigning prin- 
ciple of this Discourse. We are strongly disposed 
to think, that it is a principle which might be 
made to apply to every argument of every unbe- 
liever — and so to serve not merely as an antidote 
against the infidelity of astronomers, but to serve 
as an antidote against all infidelity. We are well 
aware of the diversity of complexion which Infi- 
delity puts on. It looks one thing in the man of 
science and of liberal accomplishment. It looks 
another thing in the refined voluptuary. It looks 
still another thing in the common-place railer 
against the artifices of priestly domination. It 
looks another thing in the dark and unsettled 
spirit of him, whose every reflection is tinctured 
with gall, and who casts his envious and malig- 
nant scowl at all that stands associated with the 
established order of society. It looks another 
thing in the prosperous man of business, who has 
neither time nor patience for the details of the 
Christian evidence — but who, amid the hurry of 
his other occupations, has gathered as many of 
the lighter petulancies of the infidel writers, and 
caught, from the perusal of them, as contemptuous 
a tone towards the religion of the New Testa- 
ment, as to set him at large from all the decencies 
of religious observation, and to give him the dis~ 



73 



dain of an elevated complacency over all the fol- 
lies of what he counts a vulgar superstition. And, 
lastly, for Infidelity has now got down amongst us 
to the humblest walks of life ; may it occasionally 
be seen louring on the forehead of the resolute 
and hardy artificer, who can lift his menacing voice 
against the priesthood, and, looking on the Bible 
as a jugglery of theirs, can bid stout defiance to 
all its denunciations. Now, under all these va- 
rieties, we think that there might be detected the 
one and universal principle which we have at- 
tempted to expose. The something, whatever it 
is, which has dispossessed all these people of their 
Christianity, exists in their minds, in the shape of 
a position, which they hold to be true, but which, 
by no legitimate evidence, they have ever realized 
— and a position which lodges within them as a 
wilful fancy or presumption of their own, but 
which could not stand the touchstone of that wise 
and solid principle, in virtue of which, the follow- 
ers of Newton give to observation the precedence 
over theory. It is a principle altogether worthy 
of being laboured — as, if carried round in faithful 
and consistent application amongst these nume- 
rous varieties, it is able to break up all the exist- 
ing Infidelity of the world. 

But there is one other most important conclu- 
sion to which it carries us. It carries us, with all 
the docility of children, to the Bible; and puts 
us down into the attitude of an unreserved sur- 

K 



74 



render of thought and understanding, to its au- 
thoritative information. Without the testimony of 
an authentic messenger from heaven, I know 
nothing of heaven's counsels. I never heard of 
any moral telescope that can bring to my observa- 
tion the doings or the deliberations which are 
taking place in the sanctuary of the Eternal. I 
may put into the registers of my belief, all that 
comes home to me through the senses of the outer 
man, or by the consciousness of the inner man. 
But neither the one nor the other can tell me of 
the purposes of God ; can tell me of the transac- 
tions or the designs of his sublime monarchy; 
can tell me of the goings forth of Him who is 
from everlasting unto everlasting ; can tell me of 
the march and the movements of that great ad- 
ministration which embraces all worlds, and takes 
into its wide and comprehensive survey the mighty 
roll of innumerable ages. It is true that my fancy 
may break its impetuous way into this lofty and 
inaccessible field ; and through the devices of my 
heart, which are many, the visions of an ever- 
shifting theology may take their alternate sway 
over me ; but the counsel of the Lord, it shall 
stand. And I repeat it, that if true to the leading 
principle of that philosophy, which has poured 
such a flood of light over the mysteries of nature, 
we shall dismiss every self-formed conception of 
our own, and wait in all the humility of conscious 
ignorance, till the Lord himself shall break hi& 
silence, and make his counsel known, by an act of 



75 



communication. And now, that a professed com- 
munication is before me, and that it has all 
the solidity of the experimental evidence on its 
side, and nothing but the reveries of a daring spe« 
culation to oppose it, what is the consistent, what 
is the rational; what is the philosophical use that 
should be made of this document, but to set me 
down like a school-boy, to the work of turning its 
pages, and conning its lessons, and submitting the 
every exercise of my judgment to its information 
and its testimony? We know that there is a super- 
ficial philosophy, which casts the glare of a most 
seducing brilliancy around it; and spurns the 
Bible, with all the doctrine, and all the piety of 
the Bible, away from it ; and has infused the spi- 
rit of Antichrist into many of the literary esta- 
blishments of the age ; but it is not the solid, the 
profound, the cautious spirit of that philosophy? 
which has done so much to ennoble the modern 
period of our world ; for the more that this spirit 
is cultivated and understood, the more will it be 
found in alliance with that spirit, in virtue of 
which all that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
of God, is humbled, and all lofty imaginations are 
cast down, and every thought of the heart is 
brought into the captivity of the obedience of 
Christ 



DISCOURSE III. 



ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSION, 



e( Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high ? 
Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in hea- 
ven, and in the earth Psalm cxiii. 5, 6. 

In our last Discourse, we attempted to expose 
the total want of evidence for the assertion of the 
infidel astronomer — and this reduces the whole of 
our remaining controversy with him, to the busi- 
ness of arguing against a mere possibility. Still, 
however, the answer is not so complete as it might 
be, till the soundness of the argument be attended 
to, as well as the credibility of the assertion — or, 
in other words, let us admit the assertion, and 
take a view of the reasoning which has been con- 
structed upon it. 

We have already attempted to lay before you 
the wonderful extent of that space, teeming with 
unnumbered worlds, which modern science has 
brought within the circle of its discoveries. We 
even ventured to expatiate on those tracts of in- 



77 



finity, which lie on the other side of all that eye 
or that telescope hath made known to us — to shoot 
afar into those ulterior regions, which are beyond 
the liinits of our astronomy-— to impress you with 
the rashness of the imagination, that the creative 
energy of God had sunk exhausted by the magni- 
tude of its efforts, at that very line, through which 
the art of man, lavished as it has been on the work 
of perfecting the instruments of vision, has not yet 
been able to penetrate ; and upon all this we ha- 
zarded the assertion, that though all these visible 
heavens w r ere to rush into annihilation, and the 
besom of the Almighty's wrath were to sweep from 
the face of the universe, those millions, and mil- 
lions more of suns and of systems, which lie within 
the grasp of our actual observation — that this 
event, which, to our eye, would leave so wide, 
and so dismal a solitude behind it, might be no- 
thing in the eye of Him who could take in the 
whole, but the disappearance of a little speck 
from that field of created things, which the hand 
of his omnipotence had thrown around him, 

But to press home the sentiment of the text, it 
is not necessary to stretch the imagination beyond 
the limit of our actual discoveries. It is enough 
to strike our minds with the insignificance of this 
world, and of all who inhabit it, to bring it into 
measurement with that mighty assemblage of 
worlds, which lie open to the eye of man, aided 
as it has been by the inventions of his genius. 



7 



78 



When we told you of the eighty millions of suns* 
each occupying his own independent territory in 
space, and dispensing his own influences over a 
cluster of tributary worlds ; this world could not 
fail to sink into littleness in the eye of him who 
looked to all the magnitude and variety which are 
around it. We gave you but a feeble image of our 
comparative insignificance, when we said that the 
glories of an extended forest would suffer no more 
from the fall of a single leaf, than the glories of 
this extended universe would suffer, though the 
globe we tread, " and all that it inherit, should 
dissolve." And when we lift our conceptions to 
Him who has peopled immensity with all these 
wonders — who sits enthroned on the magnificence 
of his own works, and by one sublime idea can 
embrace the whole extent of that boundless am- 
plitude, which he has filled with the trophies of 
his divinity ; we cannot but resign our whole heart 
to the Psalmist's exclamation of " What is man, 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 9 
that thou shouidest deign to visit him !" 

Now mark the use to which all this has been 
turned by the genius of Infidelity. Such a humble 
portion of the universe as ours, could never have 
been the object of such high and distinguishing 
attentions as Christianity has assigned to it. God 
would not have manifested himself in the flesh for 
the salvation of so paltry a world. The monarch 
of a whole continent, would never move from his 



73 



capital, and lay aside the splendour of royalty ; 
and subject himself for months, or for years, to 
perils, and poverty, and persecution ; and take 
up his abode in some small islet of his dominions, 
which, though swallowed by an earthquake, could 
not be missed amid the glories of so wide an em- 
pire ; and all this to regain the lost affections of a 
few families upon its surface. And neither would 
the eternal Son of God— he who is revealed to us 
as having made all worlds, and as holding an em- 
pire, amid the splendours of which the globe that 
we inherit, is shaded in insignificance ; neither 
would he strip himself of the glory he had with 
the Father before the world was, and light on this 
lower scene, for the purpose imputed to him in 
the New Testament. Impossible, that the con- 
cerns of this puny ball, which floats its little round 
among an infinity of larger worlds, should be of 
such mighty account in the plans of the Eternal? 
or should have given birth in heaven to so won- 
derful a movement, as the Son of God putting on 
the form of our degraded species, and sojourning 
amongst us, and sharing in all our infirmities, and 
crowning the whole scene of humiliation, by the 
disgrace and the agonies of a cruel martyrdom. 

This has been started as a difficulty in the way 
of the Christian Revelation ; and it is the boast 
of many of our philosophical Infidels, that by the 
light of modern discovery, the light of the New 
Testament is eclipsed and overborne ; and thf* 



so 

mischief Is not confined to philosophers, for the 
argument has got into other hands, and the popu- 
lar illustrations that are now given to the sub- 
limest truths of science, have widely disseminated 
all the Deism that has been grafted upon it ; and 
the high tone of a decided contempt for the Gos- 
pel, is now associated with the flippancy of super- 
ficial acquirements : and, while the venerable 
Newton, whose genius threw open those mighty 
fields of contemplation, found a fit exercise 
for his powers in the interpretation of the 
Bible, there are thousands and tens of thousands, 
who, though walking in the light which he holds 
out to them, are seduced by a complacency which 
he never felt, and inflated by a pride which never 
entered into his pious and philosophical bosom, 
and whose only notice of the Bible, is to depre- 
ciate, and to deride, and to disown it. 

Before entering into what we conceive to be the 
right answer to this objection, let us previously 
observe, that it goes to strip the Deity of an attri- 
bute, which forms a wonderful addition to the glo- 
ries of his incomprehensible character. It is in- 
deed a mighty evidence of the strength of his arm, 
that so many millions of worlds are suspended on 
it; but it would surely make the high attribute of 
his power more illustrious, if, while it expatiated 
at large among the suns and the systems of as- 
tronomy, it could, at the very same instant, be im- 
pressing a movement and a direction on all the 



81 



minuter wheels of that machinery, which is work- 
ing incessantly around us. It forms a noble de- 
monstration of his wisdom, that he gives unremit- 
ting operation to those laws which uphold the 
stability of this great universe ; but it would go to 
heighten that wisdom inconceivably, if, while 
equal to the magnificent task of maintaining the 
order and harmony of the spheres, it was lavish- 
ing its inexhaustible resources on the beauties, 
and varieties, and arrangements, of every one 
scene, however humble, of every one field, however 
narrow, of the creation he had formed. It is a 
cheering evidence of the delight he takes in com- 
municating happiness, that the whole of immensity 
should be so strewed with the habitations of life 
and of intelligence; but it would surely bring 
home the evidence, with a nearer and a more af- 
fecting impression, to every bosom, did we know, 
that at the very time his benignant regard took in 
the mighty circle of created beings, there was not a 
single family overlooked by him, and that every in- 
dividual in every corner of his dominions, was as 
effectually seen to, as if the object of an exclusive 
and undivided care. It is our imperfection, that 
we cannot give our attention to more than one ob- 
ject at one and the same instant of time ; but sure- 
ly it would elevate our every idea of the perfec- 
tions of God, did we know, that while his com- 
prehensive mind could grasp the whole amplitude 
of nature, to the very outermost of its boundaries^ 
he had an attentive eye fastened on the very hum* 

L 



82 



blest of its objects, and pondered every thought 
of my heart, and noticed every footstep of my 
goings, and treasured up in his remembrance every 
turn and every movement of my history. 

And, lastly, to apply this train of sentiment to 
the matter before us; let us suppose that one 
among the countless myriads of worlds, should be 
visited by a moral pestilence, which spread 
through all its people, and brought them under the 
doom of a law, whose sanctions were unrelenting 
and immutable ; it were no disparagement to God, 
should he, by an act of righteous indignation, 
sweep this offence away from the universe which 
it deformed — nor should we wonder, though, 
among the multitude of other worlds from which 
the ear of the Almighty was regaled with the songs 
of praise, and the incense of a pure adoration as- 
cended to his throne, he should leave the strayed 
and solitary world to perish in the guilt of its re- 
bellion. But, tell me, oh ! tell me, would it not 
throw the softening of a most exquisite tenderness 
over the character of God, should we see him 
putting forth his every expedient to reclaim to 
himself those children who had wandered away 
from him — and, few as they were when compared 
with the host of his obedient worshippers, would 
it not just impart to his attribute of compassion 
the infinity of the Godhead, that, rather than lose 
the single world which had turned to its own way t 
he should send the messengers of peace to woo 



83 



and to welcome it back again ; and, if justice 
demanded so mighty a sacrifice, and the law be- 
hooved to be so magnified and made honourable, 
tell me whether it would not throw a moral sub- 
lime over the goodness of the Deity, should he lay 
upon his own Son the burden of its atonement, 
that he might again smile upon the world, and 
hold out the sceptre of invitation to all its fami- 
lies ? 

We avow it, therefore, that this infidel argument 
goes to expunge a perfection from the character 
of God. The more we know of the extent of na- 
ture, should not we have the loftier conception of 
him who sits in high authority over the concerns of 
so wide a universe ? But, is it not adding to the 
bright catalogue of his other attributes, to say, 
that, while magnitude does not overpower him, 
minuteness cannot escape him, and variety can- 
not bewilder him ; and that, at the very time while 
the mind of the Deity is abroad over the whole 
vastness of creation, there is not one particle of 
matter, there is not one individual principle of ra- 
tional or of animal existence, there is not one 
single world in that expanse which teems with 
them, that his eye does not discern as constantly, 
and his hand does not guide as unerringly, and his 
spirit does not watch and care for as vigilantly, as 
if it formed the one and exclusive object of his 
attention* 



84 

The thing is inconceivable to us, whose minds 
are so easily distracted by a number of objects, 
and this is the secret principle of the whole Infi- 
delity I am now alluding to. To bring God to the 
level of our own comprehension, we would clothe 
him in the impotency of a man. We would trans- 
fer to his wonderful mind all the imperfection of 
our own faculties. When we are taught by as- 
tronomy, that he has millions of worlds to look 
after, and thus add in one direction to the glories 
of his character; we take away from them in 
another, by saying, that each of these worlds must 
be looked after imperfectly. The use that we 
make of a discovery, which should heighten our 
every conception of God, and humble us into the 
sentiment, that a Being of such mysterious eleva- 
tion is to us unfathomable, is to sit in judgment 
over him, aye, and to pronounce such a judgment 
as degrades him, and keeps him down to the 
standard of our own paltry imagination ! We are 
introduced by modern science to a multitude of 
other suns and of other systems; and the perverse 
interpretation we put upon the fact, that God can 
diffuse the benefits of his power and of his good- 
ness over such a variety of worlds, is, that he can- 
not, or will not, bestow so much goodness on one 
of those worlds, as a professed revelation from 
Heaven has announced to us. While we enlarge 
the provinces of his empire, we tarnish all the 
glory of this enlargement, by saying, he has so 



85 



much to care for, that the care of every one pro- 
vince must be less complete, and less vigilant, and 
less effectual, than it would otherwise have been. 
By the discoveries of modern science, we multiply 
the places of the creation; but along with this, we 
would impair the attribute of his eye being in 
every place to behold the evil and the good ; and 
thus, while we magnify one of his perfections, we 
do it at the expense of another ; and to bring him 
within the grasp of our feeble capacity, we would 
deface one of the glories of that character, which 
it is our part to adore, as higher than all thought, 
and as greater than all comprehension. 

The objection we are discussing, I shall state 
again in a single sentence. Since astronomy has 
unfolded to us such a number of worlds, it is not 
likely that God would pay so much attention to 
this one world, and set up such wonderful pro- 
visions for its benefit, as are announced to us in 
the Christian Revelation. This objection will 
have received its answer, if we can meet it by the 
following position : — that God, in addition to the 
bare faculty of dwelling on a multiplicity of ob- 
jects at one and the same time, has this faculty in 
such wonderful perfection, that he can attend as 
fully, and provide as richly, and manifest all his 
attributes as illustriously, on every one of these 
objects, as if the rest had no existence, and no 
place whatever in his government or in his 
thoughts. 



86 

For the evidence of this position, we appeal, 
in the first place, to the personal history of each 
individual among you. Only grant us, that God 
never loses sight of any one thing he has created, 
and that no created thing can continue either to 
be, or to act independently of him; and then, 
even upon the face of this world, humble as it 
is on the great scale of astronomy, how widely 
diversified, and how multiplied into many thousand 
distinct exercises, is the attention of God ! His eye 
is upon every hour of my existence. Jiis spirit is 
intimately present with every thought of my heart. 
His inspiration gives birth to every purpose within 
me. His hand impresses a direction on every 
footstep of my goings. Every breath I inhale, is 
drawn by an energy which God deals out to me* 
This body, which, upon the slightest derangement, 
would become the prey of death, or of woful suf- 
fering, is now at ease, because he at this moment 
is warding off from me a thousand dangers, and 
upholding the thousand movements of its complex 
and delicate machinery. His presiding influence 
keeps by me through the whole current of my 
restless and ever changing history. When I walk 
by the way side, he is along with me. When I 
enter into company, amid all my forgetfulness of 
him, he never forgets me. In the silent watches 
of the night, when my eyelids have closed, and 
my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the ob- 
servant eye of him who never slumbers, is upon 
me. I cannot fly from his presence. Go where I 



87 



will, he tends me, and watches me, and cares for 
me; and the same being who is now at work in 
the remotest domains of Nature and of Provi- 
dence, is also at my right hand to eke out to me 
every moment of my being, and to uphold me in 
the exercise of all my feelings, and of all my 
faculties. 

Now, what God is doing with me, he is doing 
with every distinct individual of this world's popu- 
lation. The intimacy of his presence, and atten- 
tion, and care, reaches to one and to all of them. 
With a mind unburdened by the vastness of all its 
other concerns, he can prosecute, without dis- 
traction, the government and guardianship of 
every one son and daughter of the species. — And 
is it for us, in the face of all this experience, un- 
gratefully to draw a limit around the perfections of 
God — to aver, that the multitude of other worlds 
has withdrawn any portion of his benevolence 
from the one we occupy — or that he, whose eye 
is upon every separate family of the earth, would 
not lavish all the riches of his unsearchable attri- 
butes on some high plan of pardon and immor- 
tality, in behalf of its countless generations ? 

But, secondly, were the mind of God so fa- 
tigued, and so occupied with the care of other 
worlds, as the objection presumes him to be, should 
we not see sohie traces of neglect, or of careless- 
Bess, in his management of ours ? Should we not 



88 



behold, in many a field of observation, the evi- 
dence of its master being overcrowded with the, 
variety of his other engagements ? A man op- 
pressed by a multitude of business, would sim- 
plify and reduce the work of any new concern 
that was devolved upon him. Now, point out a 
single mark of God being thus oppressed. Astro- 
nomy has laid open to us so many realms of 
creation, which were before unheard of, that the 
world we inhabit shrinks into one remote and so- 
litary province of his wide monarchy. Tell me, 
then, if, in any one field of this province, which 
man has access to, you witness a single indication 
of God sparing himself— of God reduced to 
languor by the weight of his other employments" 
of God sinking under the burden of that vast su- 
perintendence which lies upon him — of God being 
exhausted, as one of ourselves would be, by any 
number of concerns, however great, by any va- 
riety of them, however manifold ; and do you not 
perceive, in that mighty profusion of wisdom and 
of goodness, which is scattered every where 
around us, that the thoughts of this unsearchable 
Being are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our 
ways ? 

My time does not suffer me to dwell on this 
topic, because, before I conclude, I must hasten 
to another illustration. But, when I look abroad 
on the wondrous scene that is immediately before 
me— and see, that in every direction it is a scene 



89 



of the most various and unwearied activity — and 
expatiate on all the beauties of that garniture by 
which it is adorned, and on all the prints of de- 
sign and of benevolence which abound in it — and 
think, that the same God, who holds the universe, 
with its every system, in the hollow of his hand, 
pencils every flower, and gives nourishment to 
every blade of grass, and actuates the movements 
of every living thing, and is not disabled, by the 
weight of his other cares, from enriching the hum- 
ble department of nature I occupy, with charms 
and accommodations of the most unbounded va- 
riety-^-then, surely, if a message, bearing every 
mark of authenticity, should profess to come to 
me from God, and inform me of his mighty doings 
for the happiness of our species, it is not for me, 
in the face of all this evidence, to reject it as a 
tale of imposture, because astronomers have told 
me that he has so many other worlds and other or- 
ders of beings to attend to — and, when I think 
that it were a deposition of him from his supre- 
macy over the creatures he has formed, should a 
single sparrow fall to the ground without his ap- 
pointment, then let science a no sophistry try to 
cheat me of my comfort as they may — I will not 
let go the anchor of my confidence in God — I will 
not be afraid, for I am of more value than many 
sparrows. 

But, thirdly, it was the telescope, that, by 
piercing the obscurity which lies between us and 



distant worlds, put Infidelity in possession of the 
argument, against which we are now contending. 
But, about the time of its invention, another in- 
strument was formed, which laid open a scene no 
less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit 
of man with a discovery, which serves to neutral- 
ize the whole of this argument. This was the 
microscope. The one led me to see a system in 
every star. The other leads me to see a world in 
every atom. The one taught me, that this mighty 
globe, with the whole burden of its people, and 
of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high 
field of immensity. The other teaches me, that 
every grain of sand may harbour within it the 
tribes and the families of a busy population. The 
one told me of the insignificance of the world I 
tread upon. The other redeems it from all its in- 
significance ; for it tells me that in the leaves of 
every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, 
and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds 
teeming with life, and numberless as are the 
glories of the firmament. The one has suggested 
to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to 
man, there may lie fields of creation which sweep 
immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the 
Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the 
universe. The other suggests to me, that within 
and beneath all that minuteness which the aided 
eye of man has been able to explore, there may 
be a region of invisibles ; and that could we draw 
aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from 



91 



*rar senses, we might there see a theatre of as 
many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a uni- 
verse within the compass of a point so small, as 
to elude all the powers of the microscope, but 
where the wonder-working God finds room for the 
exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise 
another mechanism of worlds, and fill and ani- 
mate them all with the evidences of his glory. 

Now, mark how all this may be made to meet 
the argument of our infidel astronomers. By the 
telescope they have discovered, that no magni- 
tude, however vast, is beyond the grasp of the 
Divinity. But by the microscope, we have also 
discovered, that no minuteness, however shrunk 
from the notice of the human eye, is beneath the 
condescension of his regard. Every addition to 
the powers of the one instrument, extends the limit 
of his visible dominions. But, by every addition 
to the powers of the other instrument, we see each 
part of them more crowded than before, with the 
wonders of his unwearying hand. The one is 
constantly widening the circle of his territory. 
The other is as constantly filling up its separate 
portions, with all that is rich, and various, and 
exquisite. In a word, by the one I am told that 
the Almighty is now at work in regions more dis- 
tant than geometry has ever measured, and among 
worlds more manifold than numbers have ever 
reached. But, by the other, I am also told, that, 
■with a mind to comprehend the whole, in the vast 



92 



compass of its generality, he has also a mind to con- 
centrate a close and a separate attention on each 
and on all of its particulars ; and that the same 
God, who sends forth an upholding influence 
among the orbs and the movements of astronomy? 
can fill the recesses of every single atom with the 
intimacy of his presence, and travel, in all the 
greatness of his unimpaired attributes, upon every 
one spot and corner of the universe he has formed. 

They, therefore, who think that God will not 
put forth such a power, and such a goodness, and 
such a condescension, in behalf of this world, as 
are ascribed to him in the New Testament, be- 
cause he has so many other worlds to attend to, 
think of him as a man. They confine their view 
to the informations of the telescope, and forget 
altogether the informations of the other instru- 
ment. They only find room in their minds for his 
one attribute of a large and general superintend- 
ence, and keep out of their remembrance the 
equally impressive proofs we have for his other 
attribute of a minute and multiplied attention to 
all that diversity of operations, where it is he that 
worketh all in all. And then I think, that, as one 
of the instruments of philosophy has heightened 
our every impression of the first of these attributes, 
so another instrument has no less heightened our 
impression of the second of them — then I can no 
longer resist the conclusion, that it would be a 
transgression of sound argument, as well as a 



93 



daring of impiety, to draw a limit around the 
doings of this unsearchable God — and, should a 
professed revelation from heaven, tell me of an 
act of condescension, in behalf of some separate 
world, so wonderful that angels desired to look 
into it, and the Eternal Son had to move from his 
seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all 
I ask is the evidence of such a revelation; for, let 
it tell me as much as it may of God letting him- 
self down for the benefit of one single province 
of his dominions, this is no more than what I see 
lying scattered, in numberless examples, before 
me ; and running through the whole line of my 
recollections; and meeting me in every walk of 
observation to which I can betake myself; and, 
now that the microscope has unveiled the won- 
ders of another region, I see strewed around me 
with a profusion which baffles my every attempt 
to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no 
one portion of the universe of God too minute 
for his notice, nor too humble for the visitations of 
his care. 

As the end of all these illustrations, let me be- 
stow a single paragraph on what I conceive to be 
the precise state of this argument. 

It is a wonderful thing that God should be so 
unincumbered by the concerns of a whole uni- 
verse, that he can give a constant attention to 
every moment of every individual in this world's 



population. But, wonderful as it is, you do not 
hesitate to admit it as true, on the evidence of 
your own recollections. It is a wonderful thing 
that he whose eye is at every instant on so many 
worlds, should have peopled the world we inhabit 
with all the traces of the varied design and be- 
nevolence which abound in it. But, great as the 
wonder is, you do not allow so much as the shadow 
of improbability to darken it, for its reality is what 
you actually witness, and you never think of 
questioning the evidence of observation. It is 
wonderful, it is passing wonderful, that the same 
God, whose presence is diffused through immen- 
sity, and who spreads the ample canopy of his 
administration over all its dwelling-places, should^ 
with an energy as fresh and as unexpended as if 
he had only begun the work of creation, turn him 
to the neighbourhood around us, and lavish, on its 
every hand-breadth, all the exuberance of his 
goodness, and crowd it with the many thousand 
varieties of conscious existence. But, be the 
wonder incomprehensible as it may, you do not 
suffer in your mind the burden of a single doubt 
to lie upon it, because you do not question the re- 
port of the microscope. You do not refuse its 
information, nor turn away from it as an incompe- 
tent channel of evidence. But to bring it still 
Rearer to the point at issue, there are many who 
never looked through a microscope, but who rest 
an implicit faith in all its revelations; and upon 
what evidence, I would ask ? Upon the evidence 



95 



of testimony — upon the credit they give to the 
authors of the books they have read, and the be- 
lief they put in the record of their observations. 
Now, at this point I make my stand. It is won- 
derful that God should be so interested in the re- 
demption of a single world, as to send forth his 
well-beloved Son upon the errand, and he, to ac- 
complish it, should, mighty to save, put forth all 
his strength, and travail in the greatness of it 
But such wonders as these have already multiplied 
upon you; and when evidence is given of their 
truth, you have resigned your every judgment of 
the unsearchable God, and rested in the faith of 
them. I demand, in the name of sound and con- 
sistent philosophy, that you do the same in the 
matter before us — and take it up as a question of 
evidence — and examine that medium of testimony 
through which the miracles and informations of 
the Gospel have come to your door—and go not 
to admit as argument here, what would not be ad- 
mitted as argument in any of the analogies of na- 
ture and observation — and take along with you in 
this field of inquiry, a lesson which you should 
have learned upon other fields— even the depth of 
the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge 
of God, that his judgments are unsearchable, and 
his ways are past finding out. 

I do not enter at all into the positive evidence 
for the truth of the Christian Revelation, my 
single aim at present being to dispose of one of 



/ 



96 



the objections which is conceivedto stand in the 
way of it. Let me suppose then that this is done 
to the satisfaction of a philosophical inquirer, and 
that the evidence is sustained, and that the same 
mind that is familiarized to all the sublimities of 
natural science, and has been in the habit of con- 
templating God in association with all the mag- 
nificence which is around him, shall be brought to 
submit its thoughts to the captivity of the doctrine 
of Christ Oh ! with what veneration, and grati- 
tude, and wonder, should he look on the descent 
of him into this lower world, who made all these 
things, and without whom was not any thing made 
that was made. What a grandeur does it throw 
over every step in the redemption of a fallen 
world, to think of its being done by him who un* 
robed him of the glories of so wide a monarchy, 
and came to this humblest of its provinces, in the 
disguise of a servant, and took upon him the form 
of our degraded species, and let himself down to 
sorrows, and to sufferings, and to death, for us, 
In this love of an expiring Saviour to those for 
whom in agony he poured out his soul, there is 
a height, and a depth, and a length, and a 
breadth, more than I can comprehend; and 
let me never, never from this moment neglect 
so great a salvation, or lose my hold of an atone- 
ment, made sure by him who cried, that it was 
finished, and brought in an everlasting righteous- 
ness. It was not the visit of an empty parade that 
he made to us. It was for the accomplishment of 



97 



some substantial purpose ; and, if that purpose is 
announced, and stated to consist in his dying the 
just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto 
God, let us never doubt of our acceptance in that 
way of communication with our Father in heaven, 
which he hath opened and made known to us. In 
taking to that way, let us follow his every direction 
with that humility which a sense of all this won- 
derful condescension is fitted to inspire. Let us 
forsake all that he bids us forsake. Let us do all 
that he bids us do. Let us give ourselves up to his 
guidance with the docility of children, overpower^ 
ed by a kindness that we never merited, and a love 
that is unequalled by all the perverseness and all 
the ingratitude of our stubborn nature — for what 
shall we render unto him for such mysterious be- 
nefits—to him who has thus been mindful of us — 
to him who thus has deigned to visit us ? 

But the whole of this argument is not yet ex- 
hausted. We have scarcely entered on the de- 
fence that is commonly made against the plea which 
Infidelity rests on the wonderful extent of the uni- 
verse of God, and the insignificancy of our assign- 
ed portion of it. The way in which we have at- 
tempted to dispose of this plea, is by insisting on 
the evidence that is every where around us, of God 
combining with the largeness of a vast and mighty 
superintendence, which reaches the outskirts of 
creation, and spreads over all its amplitudes — the 
faculty of bestowing as much attention, and exer- 

N 



98 



rising as complete and manifold a wisdom, and 
lavishing as profuse and inexhaustible a goodness^ 
on each of its humblest departments, as if it form- 
ed the whole extent of his territory. 

In the whole of this argument we have looked 
upon the earth as isolated from the rest of the uni- 
verse altogether. But according to the way in 
which the astronomical objection is commonly 
met, the earth is not viewed as in a state of detach- 
ment from the other worlds, and the other orders 
of being which God has called into existence. It 
is looked upon as the member of a more extended 
system. It is associated with the magnificence of 
a moral empire, as wide as the kingdom of nature, 
It is not merely asserted, what in our last Dis- 
course has been already done, that for any thing 
we can know by reason, the plan of redemption 
may have its influences and its bearings on those 
creatures of God who people other regions, and 
occupy other fields in the immensity of his do- 
minions; that to argue, therefore, on this plan 
being instituted for the single benefit of the world 
we live in, and of the species to which we belong, 
is a mere presumption of the Infidel himself ; and 
that the objection he rears on it, must fall to the 
ground, when the vanity of the presumption is ex- 
posed. The Christian apologist thinks he can go 
further than this — that he cannot merely expose 
the utter baselessness of the Infidel assertion, but 
that he has positive ground for erecting an oppo- 



99 



site and a confronting assertion in its place— and 
that after having neutralized their position, by 
showing the entire absence of all observation in 
its behalf, he can pass on to the distinct and af- 
firmative testimony of the Bible. 

We do think that this lays open a very in- 
teresting track, not of wild and fanciful, but of 
most legitimate and sober-minded speculation. 
And anxious as we are to put every thing that 
bears upon the Christian argument into all its 
lights ; and fearless as we feel for the result of a 
most thorough sifting of it; and thinking as we do 
think it, the foulest scorn that any pigmy philo- 
sopher of the day should mince his ambiguous 
skepticism to a set of giddy and ignorant ad- 
mirers, or that a half-learned and superficial pub- 
lic should associate with the Christian priesthood, 
the blindness and the bigotry of a sinking cause— 
with these feelings, we are not disposed to blink 
a single question that may be started on the sub- 
ject of the Christian evidences. There is not 
one of its parts or bearings which needs the 
shelter of a disguise thrown over it. Let the 
priests of another faith ply their prudential expe- 
dients, and look so wise and so wary in the execu- 
tion of them. But Christianity stands in a higher 
and a firmer attitude. The defensive armour of 
a shrinking or timid policy does not suit her. 
Hers is the naked majesty of truth ; and with all 
the grandeur of age, but with none of its infirmi- 



100 



ties, has she come down to us, and gathered new 
strength from the battles she has won in the many- 
controversies of many generations. With such a 
religion as this there is nothing to hide. All 
should be above boards. And the broadest light 
of day should be made fully and freely to circu- 
late throughout all her secrecies. But secrets 
she has none. To her belong the frankness and 
the simplicity of conscious greatness ; and whe- 
ther she grapple it with the pride of philosophy, 
or stand in fronted opposition to the prejudices of 
the multitude, she does it upon her own strength, 
and spurns all the props and all the auxiliaries of 
superstition away from her. 



DISCOURSE IV, 



ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY IN THE 
DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



" Which things the angels desire to look into." 

1 Peter i. 12. 

There is a limit, across which man cannot car- 
ry any one of his perceptions, and from the ulte- 
rior of which he cannot gather a single observation 
to guide or to inform him. While he keeps by 
the objects which are near, he can get the know- 
ledge of them conveyed to his mind through the 
ministry of several of the senses. He can feel a 
substance that is within reach of his hand. He 
can smell a flower that is presented to him. He 
can taste the food that is before him. He can 
hear a sound of certain pitch and intensity ; and, 
so much does this sense of hearing widen his in- 
tercourse with external nature, that, from the dis- 
tance of miles, it can bring him in an occasional 
intimation. 



102 



But of all the tracks of conveyance which God 
has been pleased to open up between the mind of 
man, and the theatre by which he is surrounded, 
there is none by which he so multiplies his ac- 
quaintance with the rich and the varied creation 
on every side of him, as by the organ of the eye. 
It is this which gives to him his loftiest command 
over the scenery of nature. It is this by which so 
broad a range of observation is submitted to him. 
It is this which enables him, by the act of a single 
moment, to send an exploring look over the sur- 
face of an ample territory, to crowd his mind with 
the whole assembly of its objects, and to fill his 
vision with those countless hues which diversify 
and adorn it. It is this which carries him abroad 
over all that is sublime in the immensity of dis- 
tance ; which sets him as it were on an elevated 
platform, from whence he may cast a surveying 
glance over the arena of innumerable worlds ; 
which spreads before him so mighty a province of 
contemplation, that the earth he inhabits, only ap- 
pears to furnish him with the pedestal on which he 
may stand, and from which he may descry the 
wonders of all that magnificence which the Di- 
vinity has poured so abundantly around him. It 
is by the narrow outlet of the eye, that the mind 
of man takes its excursive flight over those golden 
tracks, where, in all the exhaustlessness of creative 
wealth, lie scattered the suns, and the systems of 
astronomy. But oh ! how good a thing it is, and 
how becoming well, for the philosopher to be hum- 



103 

ble even amid the proudest march of human dis- 
covery, and the sublimest triumphs of the human 
understanding, when he thinks of that unsealed 
harrier, beyond which no power, either of eye or 
of telescope, shall ever carry him ; when he thinks 
that on the other side of it, there is a height, and 
a depth, and a length, and a breadth, to which 
the whole of this concave and visible firmament 
dwindles into the insignificancy of an atom — and 
above all, how ready should he be to cast his every 
lofty imagination away from him, when he thinks 
of the God, who, on the simple foundation of his 
word, has reared the whole of this stately archi- 
tecture, and, by the force of his preserving hand, 
continues to uphold it ; aye, and should the word 
again come out from him, that this earth shall pass 
away, and a portion of the heavens which are 
around it, shall again fall back into the annihilation 
from which he at first summoned them, what an 
impressive rebuke does it bring on the swelling 
vanity of science, to think that the whole field of 
its most ambitious enterprises may be swept away 
altogether, and there remain before the eye of 
him who sitteth on the throne, an untravelled im- 
mensity, which he hath filled with innumerable 
splendours, and over the whole face of which he 
hath inscribed the evidence of his high attributes, 
in all their might, and in all their manifestation. 

But man has a great deal more to keep him 
humble of his understanding, than a mere sense 



101 



of that boundary which skirts and which ter- 
minates the material field of his contemplations. 
He ought also to feel how within that boundary, 
the vast majority of things is mysterious and un- 
known to him ; that even in the inner chamber of 
his own consciousness, where so much lies hidden 
from the observation of others, there is also to 
himself, a little world of incomprehensibles ; that 
If stepping beyond the limits of this familiar home f 
he look no further than to the members of his 
family, there is much in the cast and the colour of 
every mind that is above his powers of divination ; 
that in proportion as he recedes from the centre 
of his own personal experience, there is a cloud 
of ignorance and secrecy, which spreads, and 
thickens, and throws a deep and impenetrable 
veil over the intricacies of every one department 
of human contemplation ; that of all around him, 
his knowledge is naked and superficial, and con- 
fined to a few of those more conspicuous linea- 
ments which strike upon his senses; that the whole 
face, both of nature and of society, presents him 
with questions which he cannot unriddle, and tells 
him how beneath the surface of all that the eye 
can rest upon, there lies the profoundness of a 
most unsearchable latency; aye, and should he 
in some lofty enterprise of thought, leave this 
world, and shoot afar into those tracks of specu- 
lation which astronomy has opened — should he, 
baffled by the mysteries which beset his every 
footstep upon earth, attempt an ambitious flight 



105 

toward the mysteries of heaven-— let him go, but 
let the justness of a pious and philosophical mo- 
desty go along with him — let him forget not, that 
from the moment his mind has taken its ascending 
way for a few little miles above the world he 
treads upon, his every sense abandons him but 
one — that number, and motion, and magnitude, 
and figure, make up all the barrenness of its ele- 
mentary informations — that these orbs have sent 
him scarce another message, than told by their 
feeble glimmering upon his eye, the simple fact of 
their existence — that he sees not the landscape of 
other worlds — that he knows not the moral system 
of any one of them — nor athwart the long and 
trackless vacancy which lies between, does there 
fall upon his listening ear, the hum of their mighty 
populations. 

But the knowledge which he cannot fetch up 
himself from the obscurity of this wondrous but 
untravelled scene, by the exercise of any one of 
his own senses, might be fetched to him by the 
testimony of a competent messenger. Conceive 
a native of one of these planetary mansions to 
light upon our world, and all we should require, 
would be, to be satisfied of his credentials, that 
we may tack our faith to every point of informa- 
tion he had to offer us. With the solitary excep- 
tion of what we have been enabled to gather by 
the instruments of astronomy, there is not one of 
his communications about the place he came from, 

o 



106 



on which we possess any means at all of confront- 
ing him ; and, therefore, could he only appear be- 
fore us invested with the characters of truth, we 
should never think of any thing else than taking 
up the whole matter of his testimony just as he 
brought it to us. 

It were well had a sound philosophy schooled 
its professing disciples to the same kind of acqui- 
escence in another message, which has actually 
come to the world; and has told us of matters 
still more remote from every power of unaided 
observation ; and has been sent from a more sub- 
lime and mysterious distance, even from that God 
of whom it is said, that " clouds and darkness 
are the habitation of his throne ;" and treating of 
a theme so lofty and so inaccessible, as the coun- 
sels of that Eternal Spirit, " Whose goings forth 
are of old, even from everlasting," challenges of 
man that he should submit his every thought to 
the authority of this high communication. Oh! 
had the philosophers of the day known as well as 
their great Master, how to draw the vigorous 
land-mark which verges the field of legitimate 
discovery, they should have seen when it is that 
philosophy becomes vain, and science i° f alsely so 
called : and how it is, that when philosophy is 
true to her principles, she shuts up her faithful 
votary to the Bible, and makes him willing to 
count all but loss, for the knowledge of Jesus 
Christ, and of him crucified. 



107 



But let it be well observed,' that the object of 
this message is not to convey information to us 
about the state of these planetary regions. This 
is not the matter with which it is fraught. It is a 
message from the throne of God to this rebellious 
province of his dominions ; and the purpose of it 
is, to reveal the fearful extent of our guilt and of 
our danger, and to lay before us the overtures of 
reconciliation. Were a similar message sent from 
the metropolis of a mighty empire, to one of its 
remote and revolutionary districts, we should not 
look to it for much information about the state or 
economy of the intermediate provinces. This 
were a departure from the topic on hand — though 
still there may chance to be some incidental 
allusions to the extent and resources of the whole 
monarchy, to the existence of a similar spirit of 
rebellion in other quarters of the land, or to the 
general principle of loyalty by which it was per- 
vaded. Some casual references of this kind may 
be inserted in such a proclamation, or they may 
not — and it is with this precise feeling of ambi- 
guity that we open the record of that embassy 
which has been sent us from heaven, to see if we 
can gather any thing there, about other places of 
the creation, to meet the objections of the infidel 
astronomer. But, while we pursue this object, let 
us have a care not to push the speculation beyond 
the limits of the written testimony ; let us keep a 
just and a steady eye on the actual boundary of 
our knowledge, that, throughout every distinct 



108 



step of our argument, we might preserve that 
chaste and unambitious spirit, which characterizes 
the philosophy of him who explored these distant 
heavens, and, by the force of his genius, unra- 
velled the secret of that wondrous mechanism 
which upholds them. 

The informations of the Bible upon this subject, 
are of two sorts — that from which we confidently 
gather the fact, that the history of the redemption 
of our species is known in other and distant 
places of the creation — and that, from which we 
indistinctly guess at the fact, that the redemption 
itself may stretch beyond the limits of the world 
we occupy. 

And, here it may shortly be adverted to, that, 
though we know little or nothing of the moral and 
theological economy of the other planets, we are 
not to infer, that the beings who occupy these 
widely extended regions, even though not higher 
than we in the scale of understanding, know little 
of ours. Our first parents, ere they committed 
that act by which they brought themselves and 
their posterity into the need of redemption, had 
frequent and familiar intercourse with God. He 
walked with them in the garden of paradise ; and 
there did angels hold their habitual converse; 
and, should the same unblotted innocence which 
charmed and attracted these superior beings to 
the haunts of Eden, be perpetuated in every 



109 



planet but our own, then might each of them be 
the scene of high and heavenly communications* 
and an open way for the messengers of God be 
kept up with them all, and their inhabitants be 
admitted to a share in the themes and contempla- 
tions of angels, and have their spirits exercised on 
those things, of which we are told that the angels 
desired to look into them ; and thus, as we talk of 
the public mind of a city, or the public mind of 
an empire — by the well-frequented avenues of a 
free and ready circulation, a public mind might 
be formed throughout the whole extent of God's 
sinless and intelligent creation — and, just as we 
often read of the eyes of all Europe being turned 
to the one spot where some affair of eventful im- 
portance is going on, there might be the eyes of a 
whole universe turned to the one world, where 
rebellion against the Majesty of heaven had 
planted its standard ; and for the re-admission of 
which within the circle of his fellowship* God, 
whose justice was inflexible, but whose mercy he 
had, by some plan of mysterious wisdom, made to 
rejoice over it, was putting forth all the might, and 
travailing in all the greatness of the attributes 
which belonged to him. 

But, for the full understanding of this argument, 
it must be remarked, that, while in our exiled ha- 
bitation, where all is darkness, and rebellion, and 
enmity, the creature engrosses every heart, and 



4 



510 

our affections, when ttiey shift at all, only wander 
from one fleeting vanity to another, it is not so in 
the habitations of the unfallen. There, every de- 
sire and every movement is subordinated to God. 
He is seen in all that formed, and in all that is 
spread around them — and, amid the fulness of that 
delight with which they expatiate over the good 
and the fair of this wondrous universe, the ani- 
mating charm which pervades their every contem- 
plation, is that they behold, on each visible thing, 
the impress of the mind that conceived, and of 
the hand that made and that upholds it Here, 
God is banished from the thoughts of every na- 
tural man, and by a firm and constantly maintain- 
ed act of usurpation, do the things of sense and 
of time wield an entire ascendency. There, God 
is all in all. They walk in his light. They re- 
joice in the beatitudes of his presence. The veil 
is from off their eyes, and they see the character 
of a presiding Divinity in every scene, and in every 
event to which the Divinity has given birth. It is 
this which stamps a glory and an importance on 
the whole field of their contemplations ; and when 
they see a new evolution in the history of created 
things, the reason they bend towards it so atten- 
tive an eye, is, that it speaks to their understand- 
ing some new evolution in the purposes of God ; 
some new manifestation of his high attributes — 
some new and interesting step in the history of his 
sublime administration. 



Ill 



Now, we ought to be aware how it takes of£ 
not from the intrinsic weight, but from the actual 
impression of our argument, that this devoted ness 
to God which reigns in other places of the creation; 
this interest in him as the constant and essential 
principle of all enjoyment; this concern in the 
untaintedness of his glory ; this delight in the sur- 
vey of his perfections and his doings, are what the 
men of our corrupt and darkened world cannot 
sympathize with. 

But however little we may enter into it, the 
Bible tells us by many intimations, that amongst 
those creatures who have not fallen from their al- 
legiance, nor departed from the living God, God 
is their all — that love to him sits enthroned in their 
hearts, and fills them with all the ecstasy of an over- 
whelming affection — that a sense of grandeur never 
so elevates their souls, as when they look at the 
might and majesty of the Eternal — that no field of 
cloudless transparency so enchants them by the 
blissfulness of its visions, as when at the shrine of 
infinite and unspotted holiness, they bend them- 
selves in raptured adoration — that no beauty so 
fascinates and attracts them, as does that moral 
beauty which throws a softening lustre over the 
awfulness of the Godhead — in a word, that the 
image of his character is ever present to their 
contemplations, and the unceasing joy of their 
sinless existence lies in the knowledge and the ad- 
miration of Deity, 



112 



Let us put forth an effort, and keep a steady 
hold of this consideration, for the deadness of our 
earthly imaginations makes an effort necessary ; 
and we shall perceive, that though the world we 
live in were the alone theatre of redemption, there 
is a something in the redemption itself that is fitted 
to draw the eye of an arrested universe towards 
it. Surely, surely, where delight in God is the 
constant enjoyment, and the earnest intelligent 
contemplation of God is the constant exercise, 
there is nothing in the whole compass of nature 
or of history, that can so set his adoring myriads 
upon the gaze, as some new and w r ondrous evo- 
lution of the character of God. Now this is found 
in the plan of our redemption ; nor, do I see how 
in any transaction between the great Father of 
existence, and the children who have sprung 
from him, the moral attributes of the Deity could, 
if I may so express myself, be put to so severe 
and so delicate a test. It is true, that the great 
matters of sin and of salvation fall without im- 
pression, on the heavy ears of a listless and alien- 
ated world. But they who, to use the language of 
the Bible, are light in the Lord, look otherwise at 
these things. They see sin in all its malignity, 
and salvation in all its mysterious greatness. Aye, 
and it would put them on the stretch of all their 
faculties, when they saw rebellion lifting up its 
standard against the Majesty of heaven, and the 
truth and the justice of God embarked on the 
threatenings he had uttered against all the doers 



113 



of iniquity, and the honours of that august throne, 
which has the firm pillars of immutability to rest 
upon, linked with the fulfilment of the law that 
had come out from it ; and when nothing else was 
looked for, but that God by putting forth the 
power of his wrath should accomplish his every 
denunciation, and vindicate the inflexibility of 
his government, and by one sweeping deed of ven- 
geance^ assert in the sight of all his creatures, the 
sovereignty which belonged to him — Oh ! with 
what desire must they have pondered on his ways, 
when amid the urgency of all these demands 
which looked so high and so indispensable, they 
saw the unfoldings of the attribute of mercy — and 
how the supreme Lawgiver was bending upon his 
guilty creatures an eye of tenderness — and how 
in his profound and unsearchable wisdom, he was 
devising for them some plan of restoration — and 
how the eternal Son had to move from his dwell- 
ing-place in heaven, to carry it forward through 
all the difficulties by which it was encompassed — 
and how, after, by the virtue of his mysterious sa- 
crifice, he had magnified the glory of every other 
perfection, he made mercy rejoice over them all, 
and threw open a way by which we sinful and 
polluted wanderers might, with the whole lustre 
of the Divine character untarnished, be re-admit- 
ted into fellowship with God, and be again brought 
back within the circle of his loyal and affectionate 
family. 

p 



I 



114 



Now, the essential character of such a transac- 
tion, viewed as a manifestation of God, does not 
hang upon the number of worlds, over which this 
sin and this salvation may have extended. We 
know that over this one world such an economy 
of wisdom and of mercy is instituted— and, even 
should this be the only world that is embraced by 
it, the moral display of the Godhead is mainly 
and substantially the same, as if it reached 
throughout the whole of that habitable extent 
which the science of astronomy has made known 
to us. By the disobedience of this one world, the 
law was trampled on; and, in the business of 
making truth and mercy to meet, and have a har- 
monious accomplishment on the men of this world, 
the dignity of God was put to the same trial ; the 
justice of God appeared to lay the same immove- 
able barrier; the wisdom of God had to clear a 
way through the same difficulties ; the forgiveness 
of God had to find the same mysterious convey- 
ance to the sinners of a solitary world, as to the 
sinners of half a universe. The extent of the 
field upon which this question was decided, has 
no more influence on the question itself, than the 
figure or the dimensions of that field of combat, 
on which some great political question was fought, 
has on the importance or on the moral principles 
of the controversy that gave rise to it. This ob- 
jection about the narrowness of the theatre, car- 
ries along with it all the grossness of materialism. 
To the eye of spiritual and intelligent beings, it 



115 

h nothing. In their view, the redemption of a 
sinful world derives its chief interest from the dis- 
play it gives of the mind and purposes of the 
Deity — and, should that world be but a single 
speck in the immensity of the works of God, the 
only way in which this affects their estimate of 
him, is to magnify his loving kindness — who rather 
than lose one solitary world of the myriads he has 
formed, would lavish all the riches of his benifl- 
cence and of his wisdom on the recovery of its 
guilty population. 

Now, though it must be admitted that the Bible 
does not speak clearly or decisively as to the 
proper effect of redemption being extended to 
other worlds; it speaks most clearly and most 
decisively about the knowledge of it being dis- 
seminated amongst other orders of created intel- 
ligence than our own. But if the contemplation 
of God be their supreme enjoyment, then the very 
circumstance of our redemption being known to 
them, may invest it, even though it be but the re- 
demption of one solitary world, with an import- 
ance as wide as the universe itself. It may spread 
amongst the hosts of immensity a new illustration 
of the character of him who is all their praise* 
and in looking toward whom every energy within 
them is moved to the exercise of a deep and de- 
lighted admiration. The scene of the transaction 
may be narrow in point of material extent ? - while 



116 



in the transaction itself there may be such a moral 
dignity, as to blazon the perfections of the God- 
head over the face of creation; and from the 
manifested glory of the Eternal, to send forth a 
tide of ecstasy, and of high gratulation, through- 
out the whole extent of his dependent provinces. 

I will not, in proof of the position, that the his- 
tory of our redemption is known in other and dis- 
tant places of creation, and is matter of deep in- 
terest and feeling amongst other orders of created 
intelligence — I will not put down all the quotations 
which might be assembled together upon this ar- 
gument. It is an impressive circumstance, that 
when Moses and Elias made a visit to our Saviour 
on the mount of transfiguration, and appeared in 
glory from heaven, the topic they brought along 
with them, and with which they were fraught, was 
the decease he was going to accomplish at Jeru- 
salem. And however insipid the things of our sal- 
vation may be to an earthly understanding ; we 
are made to know, that in the sufferings of Christ, 
and the glory which should follow, there is matter 
to attract the notice of celestial spirits, for these 
are the very things, says the Bible, which angels 
desire to look into. And however listlessly we, 
the dull and grovelling children of an exiled fa- 
mily, may feel about the perfections of the God- 
head, and the display of those perfections in the 
economy of the Gospel, it is intimated to us in the 



117 



book of God's message, that the creation has its 
districts and its provinces ; and we accordingly 
read of thrones, and dominions, and principali- 
ties, and powers — and whether these terms denote 
the separate regions of government, or the beings 
who, by a commission granted from the sanctuary 
of heaven, sit in delegated authority over them — 
even in their eyes the mystery of Christ stand* 
arrayed in all the splendour of unsearchable 
riches ; for we are told that this mystery was re- 
vealed for the very intent, that unto the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places, might be 
made known by the church, the manifold wisdom 
of God. And while we, whose prospect reaches 
not beyond the narrow limits of the corner we oc- 
cupy, look on the dealings of God in the world, 
as carrying in them all the insignificancy of a pro- 
vincial transaction; God himself, whose eye 
reaches to places which our eye hath not seen, 
nor our ear heard of, neither hath it entered into 
the imagination of our heart to conceive, stamps 
a universality on the whole matter of the Christian 
salvation, by such revelations as the following : 
That he is to gather together in one all things in 
Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are 
in earth, even in him — and that at the name of 
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
and things in earth, and things under the earth — 
and that by him God reconciled all things unt© 
himself, whether they be things in earth, or things 
in heaven. 



its 



We will not say in how far some of these pas» 
sages extend the proper effect of that redemption 
which is bj Christ Jesus, to other quarters of the 
universe of God; but they at least go to establish 
a widely disseminated knowledge of this transac- 
tion amongst the other orders of created intelli- 
gence. And they give us a distant glimpse of 
something more extended. They present a faint 
opening, through which may be seen some few 
traces of a wider and a nobler dispensation. They 
bring before us a dim transparency, on the other 
side of which the images of an obscure magnifi- 
cence dazzle indistinctly upon the eye ; and tell us 
that in the economy of redemption, there is a 
grandeur commensurate to all that is known of the 
other works and purposes of the Eternal. They 
oflfer us no details ; and man, who ought not to at- 
tempt a wisdom above that which is written, should 
never put forth his hand to the drapery of that 
impenetrable curtain which God in his mysterious 
wisdom has spread over those ways, of which it is 
but a very small portion that we know of them. 
But certain it is, that we know as much of them 
from the Bible ; and the Infidel, with all the pride 
of his boasted astronomy, knows so little of them, 
from any power of observation, that the baseless 
argument of his, on which we have dwelt so long, 
is overborne in the light of all that positive evi- 
dence which God has poured around the record 
of his own testimony, and even in the light of its 
more obscure and casual intimations. 



119 



The minute and variegated details of the way 
in which this wondrous economy is extended? 
God has chosen to withhold from us ; but he has 
oftener than once made to us a broad and a gene- 
ral announcement of its dignity. He does not tell 
us whether the fountain opened in the house of 
Judah, for sin and for uncleanness, send forth its 
healing: streams to other worlds than our own. 
He does not tell us the extent of the atonement. 
But he tells us that the atonement itself, known 
as it is among the myriads of the celestial, forms 
the high song of eternity ; that the Lamb who was 
slain, is surrounded by the acclamations of one 
wide and universal empire ; that the might of his 
wondrous achievements, spreads a tide of gratu- 
lation over the multitudes who are about his 
throne; and that there never ceases to ascend 
from the worshippers of him who washed us from 
our sins in his blood, a voice loud as from numbers 
without number, sweet as from blessed voices 
uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and loud 
hosannas fill the eternal regions. 

" And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many 
angels round about the throne, and the number of 
them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 
glory, and honour, and blessing. And every crea- 
ture which is in heaven, and on the earth, and 



120 



under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and 
all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and 
honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that 
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever 
and ever." 

A king might have the whole of his reign 
crowded with the enterprises of glory ; and by the 
might of his arms, and the wisdom of his counsels 
might win the first reputation among the poten- 
tates of the world ; and be idolized throughout all 
his provinces, for the wealth and the security that 
he had spread around them— and still it is con- 
ceivable, that by the act of a single day in behalf 
of a single family ; by some soothing visitation of 
tenderness to a poor and solitary cottage ; by 
some deed of compassion, which conferred en- 
largement and relief on one despairing sufferer ; 
by some graceful movement of sensibility at a tale 
of wretchedness; by some noble effort of self- 
denial, in virtue of which he subdued his every 
purpose of revenge, and spread the mantle of a 
generous oblivion over the fault of the man who 
had insulted and aggrieved him ; above all, by an 
exercise of pardon so skilfully administered, as 
that instead of bringing him down to a state of 
defencelessness against the provocation of future 
injuries, it threw a deeper sacredness over him, 
and stamped a more inviolable dignity than ever 
on his person and character : — why, my brethren, 
on the strength of one such performance done in 



121 



a single hour, and reaching no further in its im- 
mediate effects than to one house, or to one indi- 
vidual, it is a most possible thing, that the highest 
monarch upon earth might draw such a lustre 
around him as would eclipse the renown of all his 
public achievements — and that such a display of 
magnanimity, or of worth, beaming from the 
secrecy of his familiar moments, might waken a 
more cordial veneration in every bosom, than all 
the splendour of his conspicuous history — aye, and 
that it might pass down to posterity, as a more en- 
during monument of greatness, and raise him fur- 
ther by its moral elevation above the level of or- 
dinary praise ; and when he passes in review be- 
fore the men of distant ages, may this deed of 
modest, gentle, unobtrusive virtue, be at all times 
appealed to, as the most sublime and touching 
memorial of his name. 

In like manner, did the King eternal, immortal, 
and invisible, surrounded as he is with the splen- 
dours of a wide and everlasting monarchy, turn 
him to our humble habitation ; and the footsteps 
of God manifest in the flesh, have been on the 
narrow spot of ground we occupy; and small 
though our mansion be, amid the orbs and the sys- 
tems of immensity, hither hath the King of glory 
bent his mysterious way, and entered the taber- 
nacle of men, and in the disguise of a servant did 
he sojourn for years under the roof which cano- 
pies our obscure and solitary world. Yes, it is 



122 



but a twinkling atom in the peopled infinity of v * 
worlds that are around it — but look to the moral 
grandeur of the transaction, and not to the mate- 
rial extent of the field upon which it was executed — 
and from the retirement of our dwelling-place, 
there may issue forth such a display of the God- 
head, as will circulate the glories of his name 
amongst all his worshippers. Here sin entered. 
Here was the kind and universal benificence of a 
Father, repaid by the ingratitude of a whole 
family. Here the law of God was dishonoured, and 
that too in the face of its proclaimed and unal- 
terable sanctions. Here the mighty contest of 
the attributes was ended — and when justice put 
forth its demands, and truth called for the fulfil- 
ment of its warnings, and the immutability of God 
would not recede by a single iota, from any one 
of its positions, and all the severities he had ever 
uttered against the children of iniquity, seemed to 
gather into one cloud of threatening vengeance 
on the tenement that held us — did the visit of the 
only-begoiten Son chase away all these obstacles 
to the triumph of mercy — and humble as the 
tenement may be, deeply shaded in the obscurity 
of insignificance as it is, among the statelier man- 
sions which are on every side of it — yet will the 
recal of its exiled family never be forgotten — and 
the illustration that has been given here, of the 
mingled grace and majesty of God, will never lose 
its place among the themes and the acclamations 
of eternity. 



123 



And here it may be remarked, that as the 
earthly king who throws a moral aggrandizement 
around him, by the act of a single day, finds, that 
after its performance, he may have the space of 
many years for gathering to himself the triumphs 
of an extended reign— so the King who sits on 
high, and with whom one day is as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day, will find, 
that after the period of that special administration 
is ended, by which this strayed world is again 
brought back within the limits of his favoured 
creation, there is room enough along the mighty 
track of eternity, for accumulating upon himself a 
glory as wide and as universal as is the extent of 
his dominions. You will allow the most illustrious 
of this world's potentates, to give some hour of 
his private history to a deed of cottage or of do- 
mestic tenderness; and every time you think of 
the interesting story, you will feel how sw r eetly 
and how gracefully the remembrance of it blends 
itself with the fame of his public achievements. 
But still you think that there would not have been 
room enough for these achievements of his, had 
much of his time been spent, either amongst the 
habitations of the poor, or in the retirement of 
his own family ; and you conceive, that it is be- 
cause a single day bears so small a proportion to 
the time of his whole history, that he has been 
able to combine an interesting display of private 
worth, with all that brilliancy of exhibition, which 



124 



has brought him down to posterity in the character 
of an august and a mighty sovereign. 

Now apply this to the matter before us. Had 
the history of our redemption been confined within 
the limits of a single day, the argument that Infi- 
delity has drawn from the multitude of other 
worlds, would never have been offered. It is 
true, that ours is but an insignificant portion of the 
territory of God — but if the attentions by which 
he has signalized it, had only taken up a single 
day, this would never have occurred to us as 
forming any sensible withdrawment of the mind of 
the Deity from the concerns of his vast and uni- 
versal government. It is the time which the plan 
of our salvation requires, that startles all those on 
whom this argument has any impression. It is the 
time taken up about this paltry world, which they 
feel to be out of proportion to the number of 
other worlds, and to the immensity of the sur- 
rounding creation. Now, to meet this impression, 
I do not insist at present on what I have already 
brought forward, that God, whose ways are not 
as our ways, can have his eye at the same instant 
on every place, and can divide and diversify his 
attention into any number of distinct exercises. 
What I have now to remark, is, that the Infidel 
who urges the astronomical objection to the truth 
of Christianity, is only looking with half an eye 
to the principle on which it rests. Carry out the 



125 



principle, and the objection vanishes. He looks 
abroad on the immensity of space, and tells us 
how impossible it is, that this narrow corner of it 
can be so distinguished by the attentions of the 
Deity. Why does he not also look abroad on the 
magnificence of eternity; and perceive how the 
whole period of these peculiar attentions, how the 
whole time which elapses between the fall of man 
and the consummation of the scheme of his re- 
covery, is but the twinkling of a moment to the 
mighty roll of innumerable ages ? The whole 
interval between the time of Jesus Christ's leaving 
his Father's abode, to sojourn amongst us, to that 
time when he shall have put all his enemies and egg 
his feet, and delivered up the kingdom to God, 
even his Father, that God may be all in all ; the 
whole of this interval bears as small a proportion 
to the whole of the Almighty's reign, as this so- 
litary world does to the universe around it, and an 
infinitely smaller proportion than any time, how- 
ever short, which an earthly monarch spends on 
some enterprise of private benevolence, does to 
the whole walk of his public and recorded history. 

Why then does not the man, who can shoot his 
conceptions so sublimely abroad over the field of 
an immensity that knows no limits — -why does he 
not also shoot them forward through the vista of a 
succession, that ever flows without stop and with- 
out termination ? He has burst across the confines 
of this world's habitation in space, and out of the 



126 



field which lies on the other side of it, has he 
gathered an argument against the truth of revela- 
tion. I feel that I have nothing to do but to burst 
across the confines of this world's history in time, 
and out of the futurity which lies beyond it, can I 
gather that which will blow the argument to 
pieces, or stamp upon it all the narrowness of a 
partial and mistaken calculation. The day is 
coming, when the whole of this wondrous history 
shall be looked back upon by the eye of remem- 
brance, and be regarded as one incident in the 
-extended annals of creation, and with all the illus- 
tration and all the glory it has thrown on the cha- 
racter of the Deity, will it be seen as a single step 
' in the evolution of his designs ; and long as the 
time may appear, from the first act of our redemp- 
tion to its final accomplishment, and close and ex- 
clusive as we may think the attentions of God 
upon it, it will be found that it has left him room 
enough for all his concerns, and that on the high 
scale of eternity, it is but one of those passing 
and ephemeral transactions, which crowd the his- 
tory of a never-ending administration. 



DISCOURSE V. 



ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN IN THE BX5~ 
TANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one 
sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
persons which need no repentance." — Luke xv. 7. 



I have already attempted at full length to esta- 
blish the position, that the infidel argument of as- 
tronomers goes to expunge a natural perfection 
from the character of God, even that wondrous 
property of his, by which he, at the same instant 
of time, can bend a close and a careful attention 
on a countless diversity of objects, and diffuse the 
intimacy of his power and of his presence, from 
the greatest to the minutest and most insignificant 
of them all. I also adverted shortly to this other 
circumstance, that it went to impair a moral at- 
tribute of the Deity. It goes to impair the bene- 
volence of his nature. It is saying much for the 
benevolence of God, to say, that a single world, or 
a single system, is not enough for it — that it must 



128 



have the spread of a mightier region, oh which it 
may pour forth a tide of exuberancy throughout all 
its provinces- — that as far as our vision can carry us, 
it has strewed immensity with the floating recep- 
tacles of life, and has stretched over each of them 
the garniture of such a sky as mantles our own 
habit iion — and that even from distances which 
are far beyond the reach of human eye, the songs of 
gratitude and praise may now be arising to the 
one God, who sits surrounded by the regards of 
his one great and universal family. 

Now it is saying much for the benevolence of 
God, to say that it sends forth these wide and dis- 
tant emanations over the surface- of a territory so 
ample, that the world we inhabit, lying imbedded 
as it does amidst so much surrounding greatness, 
shrinks into a point that to the universal eye might 
appear to be almost imperceptible. But does it 
not add to the power and to the perfection of this 
universal eye, that at the very moment it is taking 
a comprehensive survey of the vast, it can fasten 
a steady and Undistracted attention on each mi- 
nute and separate portion of it ; that at the very 
moment it is looking at all worlds, it can look most 
pointedly and most intelligently to each of them ; 
that at the very moment it sweeps the field of im- 
mensity, it can settle all the earnestness of its re- 
gards upon every distinct hand-breadth of that 
field ; that at the very moment at which it em- 
braces the totality of existence, it can send a most 



129 



thorough and penetrating inspection into each of 
its details, and into every one of its endless 
diversities? You cannot fail to perceive how 
much this adds to the power of the all-seeing eye. 
Tell me then, if it do not add as much perfection 
to the benevolence of God, that while it is ex- 
patiating over the vast field of created things, 
there is not one portion of the field overlooked by 
it ; that while it scatters blessings over the whole 
of an infinite range, it causes them to descend in 
a shower of plenty on every separate habitation ; 
that while his arm is underneath and round about 
all worlds, he enters within the precincts of every 
one of them, and gives a care and a tenderness to 
each individual of their teeming population. Oh ! 
does not the God, who is said to be love, shed 
over this attribute of his its finest illustration 
when, while he sits in the highest heaven, and 
pours out his fulness on the whole subordinate do- 
main of nature and of providence, he bows a 
pitying regard on the very humblest of his children^ 
and sends his reviving Spirit into every heart, and 
cheers by his presence every home, and provides 
for the wants of every family, and watches every 
sick-bed, and listens to the complaints of every 
sufferer; and while, by his wondrous mind the 
weight of universal government is borne, oh ! is it 
not more wondrous and more excellent still, that 
he feels for every sorrow, and has an ear open to 
every prayer ? 



it 



130 



" It doth not yet appear what we shall be, ,? 
says the apostle John, " but we know that when 
he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall 
see him as he is." It is the present lot of the 
angels, that they behold the face of our Father in 
heaven, and it would seem as if the effect of this 
was to form and to perpetuate in them the moral 
likeness of himself, and that they reflect back 
upon him his own image, and that thus a diffused 
resejjoblance to the Godhead is kept up amongst 
all those adoring worshippers who live in the near 
and rejoicing contemplation of the Godhead. 
Mark then how that peculiar and endearing fea- 
ture in the goodness of the Deity, which we have 
just now adverted to — mark how beauteously it is 
reflected downwards upon us in the revealed atti- 
tude of angels. From the high eminences of 
heaven, are they bending a wakeful regard over 
the men of this sinful world ; and the repentance 
of every one of them spreads a joy and a high 
gratulation throughout all its dwelling places. 
Put this trait of the angelic character into contrast 
with the dark and louring spirit of an infidel. He 
is told of the multitude of other worlds, and he 
feels a kindling magnificence in the conception, 
and he is seduced by an elevation which he cannot 
carry, and from this airy summit does he look 
down on the insignificance of the world we occupy, 
and pronounces it to be unworthy of those visits 
and of those attentions which we read of in the 



131 



New Testament. He is unable to wing his up^ 
ward way along the scale, either of moral or of 
natural perfection; and when the wonderful ex- 
tent of the field is made known to him, over which 
the wealth of the Divinity is lavished— there he 
stops, and wilders, and altogether misses this es- 
sential perception, that the power and perfection 
of the Divinity are not more displayed by the mere 
magnitude of the field, than they are by that mi- 
nute and exquisite filling up, which leaves not its 
smallest portions neglected; but which imprints 
ihe fulness of the Godhead upon every one of 
them ; and proves, by every flower of the pathless 
desert, as well as by every orb of immensity, how 
this unsearchable Being can care for all, and pro- 
vide for all, and throned in mystery too high for 
us, can, throughout every instant of time, keep 
his attentive eye on every separate thing that he 
has formed, and by an act of his thoughtful and 
presiding intelligence, can constantly embrace all. 

But God, compassed about as he is with light 
inaccessible, and full of glory, lies so hidden from 
the ken and conception of all our faculties, that 
the spirit of man sinks exhausted by its attempts 
to comprehend him. Could the image of the Su- 
preme be placed direct before the eye of the 
mind, that flood of splendour, which is ever is- 
suing from him on all who have the privilege of 
beholding, would not only dazzle, but overpower 
us. And, therefore it is, that I bid you look to 



132 



the reflection of that image, and thus to take a 
view of its mitigated glories, and to gather the 
lineaments of the Godhead in the face of those 
righteous angels, who have never thrown away 
from them the resemblance in which they were 
created ; and, unable as you are to support the 
grace and the majesty of that countenance, before 
which the sons and the prophets of other days 
fell, and became as dead men, let us, before we 
bring this argument to a close, borrow one lesson 
of him who sitteth on the throne, from the aspect 
and the revealed doings of those who are surround- 
ing it. 

The infidel, then, as he widens the field of his 
Contemplations, would suffer its every separate 
object to die away into forgetfulness: these angels, 
expatiating as they do over the range of a loftier 
universality, are represented as all awake to the 
history of each of its distinct and subordinate pro- 
vinces. The infidel, with his mind afloat among 
suns and among systems, can find no place in his 
already occupied regards, for that humble planet 
which lodges and accommodates our species : the 
angels, standing on a loftier summit, and with a 
mightier prospect of creation before them, are yet 
represented as looking down on this single world* 
and attentively marking the every feeling and the 
every demand of all its families. The infidel, by 
sinking us down to an urinoticeable minuteness, 
would lose sight of our dwelling-place altogether* 



133 



and spread a darkening shroud of oblivion over 
all the concerns and all the interests of men ; but 
the angels will not so abandon us ; and undazzled 
by the whole surpassing grandeur of that scenery 
which is around them, are they revealed as direct- 
ing all the fulness of their regard to this our habi- 
tation, and casting a longing and a benignant eye 
on ourselves and on our children. The infidel 
will tell us of those worlds which roll afar, and 
the number of which outstrips the arithmetic of 
the human understanding— and then with the 
hardness of an unfeeling calculation, will he con- 
sign the one we occupy, with all its guilty genera- 
tions, to despair. But he who counts the number 
of the stars, is set forth to us as looking at every 
inhabitant among the millions of our species, and 
by the word of the Gospel beckoning to him with 
the hand of invitation, and on the very first step 
of his return, as moving towards him with all the 
eagerness of the prodigal's father, to receive him 
back again into that presence from which he had 
wandered. And as to this world, in favour of 
which the scowling infidel will not permit one soli- 
tary movement, all heaven is represented as in a 
stir about its restoration ; and there cannot a sin- 
gle son or a single daughter be recalled from sin 
unto righteousness, without an acclamation of joy 
amongst the hosts of Paradise. Aye, and I can 
say it of the humblest and the unworthiest of you 
all, that the eye of angels is upon him, and that 
his repentance would at this moment, send forth a 



134 



wave of delighted sensibility throughout the mighty 
throng of their innumerable legions. 

Now, the single question I have to ask, is, On 
which of the two sides of this contrast do we see 
most of the impress of heaven ? Which of the two 
would be most glorifying to God ? Which of them 
carries upon it most of that evidence which lies in 
its having a celestial character ? For if it be the 
side of the infidel, then must all our hopes expire 
with the ratifying of that fatal sentence, by which 
the world is doomed, through its insignificancy, to 
perpetual exclusion from the attentions of the 
Godhead. I have long been knocking at the door 
of your understanding, and have tried to find an 
admittance to it for many an argument. I now 
make my appeal to the sensibilities of your heart; 
and tell me, to whom does the moral feeling within 
it yield its readiest testimony — to the infidel, who 
would make this world of ours vanish away 
into abandonment — or to those angels, who ring 
throughout all their mansions the hosannas of joy, 
over every one individual of its repentant popu- 
lation ? 

And here I cannot omit to take advantage of 
that opening with which our Saviour has furnish- 
ed us, by the parables of this chapter, and admits 
us into a familiar view of that principle on which 
the inhabitants of heaven are so awake to the de- 
liverance and the restoration of our species* To 



135 



illustrate the difference in the reach of knowledge 
and of affection, between a man and an angel, let 
us think of the difference of reach between one 
man and another. You may often witness a man, 
who feels neither tenderness nor care beyond the 
precincts of his own family ; but who, on the 
strength of those instinctive fondnesses which na- 
ture has implanted in his bosom, may earn the 
character of an amiable father, or a kind husband, 
or a bright example of all that is soft and endear- 
ing in the relations of domestic society. Now, 
conceive him, in addition to all this, to carry his 
affections abroad, without, at the same time, any 
abatement of their intensity towards the objects 
which are at home — that, stepping across the 
limits of the house he occupies, he takes an in- 
terest in the families which are near him — that he 
lends his services to the town or the district 
wherein he is placed, and gives up a portion of his 
time to the thoughtful labours of a humane and 
public-spirited citizen. By this enlargement in the 
sphere of his attention he has extended his reach; 
and, provided he has not done so at the expense 
of that regard which is due to his family— a thing 
which, cramped and confined as we are, we are 
very apt, in the exercise of our humble faculties, 
to do — I put it to you, whether, by extending the 
reach of his views and his affections, he has not 
extended his worth and his moral respectability 
along with it ? 



136 



But I can conceive a still further enlargement, 
I can figure to myself a man, whose wakeful sym- 
pathy overflows the field of his own immediate 
neighbourhood — to whom the name of country 
comes with all the omnipotence of a charm upon 
his heart, and with all the urgency of a most 
righteous and resistless claim upon his services — • 
who never hears the name of Britain sounded in 
his ears, but it stirs up all his enthusiasm in be- 
half of the worth and the welfare of its people — 
who gives himself up, with all the devotedness of 
a passion, to the best and the purest objects of 
patriotism — and who, spurning away from him the 
vulgarities of party ambition, separates his life and 
his labours to the fine pursuit of augmenting the 
science, or the virtue, or the substantial prosperity 
of his nation. Oh ! could such a man retain all 
the tenderness, and fulfil all the duties which home 
and which neighbourhood require of him, and at 
the same time expatiate, in the might of his un- 
tired faculties, on so wide a field of benevolent 
contemplation — would not this extension of reach 
place him still higher than before, on the scale 
both of moral and intellectual gradation, and give 
him a still brighter and more enduring name in 
the records of human excellence ? 

And, lastly, I can conceive a still loftier flight of 
humanity — a man, the aspiring of whose heart for 
the good of man $ knows no limitations — whose 



137 



longings, and whose conceptions on this subject, 
overleap all the barriers of geography — who, look- 
ing on himself as a brother of the species, links 
every spare energy which belongs to him with the 
cause of its melioration — who can embrace with- 
in the grasp of his ample desires the whole family 
of mankind — and who, in obedience to a heaven- 
born movement of principle within him, separates 
himself to some big and busy enterprise, which is 
to tell on the moral destinies of the world. Oh ! 
could such a man mix up the softenings of private 
virtue with the habit of so sublime a comprehen- 
sion — if, amid those magnificent darings of thought 
and of performance, the mildness of his benign- 
ant eye could still continue to cheer the retreat 
oi his family, and to spread the charm and the 
sacredness of piety among all its members — 
could he even mingle himself, in all the gentleness 
of a soothed and a smiling heart, with the playful- 
ness of his children — and also find strength to 
shed the blessing* of his presence and his counsel 
over the vicinity around him ; — oh ! would not the 
combination of so much grace with so much lofti- 
ness, only serve the more to aggrandize him? 
Would not the one ingredient of a character so 
rare, go to illustrate and to magnify the other ? 
And would not you pronounce him to be the fair- 
est specimen of our nature, who could so call out 
all your tenderness, while he challenged and com- 
pelled all your veneration? 

s 



138 



Nor can I proceed, at this point of my argument, 
without adverting to the way in which this last 
and this largest style of benevolence is exempli- 
fied in our own country — where the spirit of the 
Gospel has given to many of its enlightened dis- 
ciples the impulse of such a philanthropy, as car- 
ries abroad their wishes and their endeavours to 
the very outskirts of human population — a philan- 
thropy, of which, if you asked the extent or the 
boundary of its field, we should answer, in the 
language of inspiration, that the field is the world 
— a philanthropy, which overlooks all the distinc- 
tions of cast and of colour, and spreads its ample 
regards over the whole brotherhood of the spe- 
cies — a philanthropy, which attaches itself to- 
man in the general ; to man throughout all his 
varieties ; to man as the partaker of one common 
nature, and who, in whatever clime or latitude 
you may meet with him, is found to breathe the 
same sympathies, and to possess the same high 
capabilities both of bliss and of improvement. It 
is true that, upon this subject, there is often a 
loose and unsettled magnificence of thought, which 
is]fruitful of nothing but empty speculation. But 
the men to whom I allude have not imaged the en- 
terprise in the form of a thing unknown. They 
have given it a local habitation. They have 
bodied it forth in deed and in accomplishment. 
They have turned the dream into a reality. In 
them, the power of a lofty generalization meets 



139 



with its happiest attemperment in the principle and 
perseverance, and all the chastening and subdu- 
ing virtues of the New Testament. And, were I 
in search of that fine union of grace and of great- 
ness which I have now been insisting on, and in 
virtue of which the enlightened Christian can at 
once find room in his bosom for the concerns of 
universal humanity, and for the play of kindliness 
towards every individual he meets with — I could 
no where more readily expect to find it, than with 
the worthies of our own land — the Howard of a 
former generation, who paced it over Europe in 
quest of the unseen wretchedness which abounds 
in it — or in such men of our present generation 
as Wilberforce, who lifted his unw€aried voice 
against the biggest outrage ever practised on our 
nature, till he wrought its extermination — and 
Clarkson, who plied his assiduous task at rearing 
the materials of its impressive history, and at length 
carried, for this righteous cause, the mind of Par- 
liament — and Carey, from whose hand the genera- 
tions of the East are now receiving the elements 
of their moral renovation — and, in fine, those holy 
and devoted men, who count not their lives dear 
unto them ; but, going forth every year from the 
island of our habitation, carry the message of 
heaven over the face of the world ; and in the 
front of severest obloquy are now labouring in 
remotest lands ; and are reclaiming another and 
another portion from the wastes of dark and fallen 
humanity ; and are widening the domains of gos- 



140 



pel light and gospel principle amongst them ; and 
are spreading a moral beauty around the every 
spot on which they pitch their lowly tabernacle ; 
and are at length compelling even the eye and the 
testimony of gainsayers, by the success of their 
noble enterprise ; and are forcing the exclamation 
of delighted ^surprise from the charmed and the 
arrested traveller, as he looks at the softening tints 
which they are now spreading over the wilderness, 
and as he hears the sound of the chapel bell, and 
as in those haunts where, at the distance of half 
a generation, savages would have scowled upon 
his path, he regales himself with the hum of mis- 
sionary schools, and the lovely spectacle of peace- 
ful and Christian villages. 

Such, then, is the benevolence, at once so gen- 
tle and so lofty, of those men, who, sanctified by 
the faith that is in Jesus, have had their hearts 
visited from heaven by a beam of warmth and of 
sacredness. What, then, I should like to know, 
is the benevolence of the place from whence such 
an influence cometh ? How wide is the compass of 
this virtue there, and how exquisite is the feeling 
of its tenderness, and how pure and how fervent 
are its aspirings among those unfallen beings who 
have no darkness, and no encumbering weight of 
corruption to strive against ! Angels have a 
mightier reach of contemplation. Angels can 
look upon this world, and all which it inherits, as 
the part of a larger family. Angels were in the 



141 

full exercise of their powers even at the first in- 
fancy of our species, and shared in the gratula- 
tions of that period, when at the birth of humanity 
all intelligent nature felt a gladdening impulse, 
and the morning stars sang together for joy. 
They loved us even with the love which a family 
on earth bears to a younger sister;' and the very 
childhood of our tinier faculties did only serve the 
more to endear us to them ; and though born at a 
later hour in the history of creation, did they re- 
gard us as heirs of the same destiny with them- 
selves, to rise along with them in the scale of 
moral elevation, to bow at the same footstool, and 
to partake in those high dispensations of a pa- 
rent's kindness and a parent's care, which are ever 
emanating from the throne of the Eternal on all 
the members of a duteous and affectionate family. 
Take the reach of an angel's mind, but, at the 
same time, take the seraphic fervour of an angel's 
benevolence along with it; how, from the emi- 
nence on which he stands he may have an eye 
upon many worlds, and a remembrance upon the 
origin and the successive concerns of every one 
of them ; how he may feel the full force of a most 
affecting relationship with the habitants of each, 
as the offspring of one common Father; and 
though it be both the effect and the evidence of 
our depravity, that we cannot sympathize with 
these pure and generous ardours of a celestial 
spirit ; how it may consist with the lofty compre- 
hension, and the ever-breathing love of an angel, 



142 



that he can both shoot his benevolence abroad 
over a mighty expanse of planets and of systems, 
and lavish a flood of tenderness on each individual 
of their teeming population. 

Keep all this in view, and you cannot fail to 
perceive how the principle, so finely and so co- 
piously illustrated in this chapter, may be brought 
to meet the infidelity we have thus long been em- 
ployed in combating. It was nature, and the ex- 
perience of every bosom will affirm it — it was na- 
ture in the shepherd to leave the ninety and nine 
of his flock forgotten and alone in the wilderness, 
and betaking himself to the mountains, to give all 
his labour and all his concern to the pursuit of one 
solitary wanderer. It was nature; and we are 
told in the passage before us, that it is such a 
portion of nature as belongs not merely to men, 
but to angels ; when the woman, with her mind in 
a state of iistlessness as to the nine pieces of silver 
that were in secure custody, turned the whole 
force of her anxiety to the one piece which she 
had lost, and for which she had to light a candle, 
and to sweep the house, and to search diligently 
until ehe found it. It was nature in her to rejoice 
more over that piece, than over all the rest of 
them, and to tell it abroad among friends and 
neighbours, that they might rejoice along with 
her — aye, and sadly effaced as humanity is, in all 
her original lineaments, this is a part of our na- 
ture, the very movements of which are experi- 



143 



enced in heaved " where there is more joy over 
one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and 
nine just persons who need no repentance." For 
any thing I know, the every planet that rolls in 
the immensity around me, may be a land of 
righteousness ; and be a member of the household 
of God; and have her secure dwelling-place 
within that ample limit, which embraces his great 
and universal family. But I know at least of one 
wanderer ; and how wofully she has strayed from 
peace and from purity ; and how in dreary alien- 
ation from him who made her, she has bewildered 
herself amongst those many devious tracts, which 
have carried her afar from the path of immor- 
tality ; and how sadly tarnished all those beauties 
and felicities are, which promised, on that morn- 
ing of her existence when God looked on her, and 
saw that all was very good — whieh promised so 
richly to bless and to adorn her; and how in the 
eve of the whole unfallen creation, she has re- 
nounced all this goodliness, and is fast departing 
away from them into guilt, and wretchedness, and 
shame. Oh ! if there be any truth in this chapter^ 
and any sweet or touching nature in the principle 
which runs throughout all its parables, let us cease 
to wonder, though they who surround the throne 
of love should be looking so intently towards us- 
er though, in the way by which they have singled 
us out, all the other orbs of space should, for one 
short season, on the scale of eternity, appear t© 
be forgotten — or though, for every step of her re- 



144 



covery, and for every individual who is rendered 
back again to the fold from which he was separated , 
another and another message of triumph should 
be made to circulate amongst the hosts of pa- 
radise—or though, lost as we are, and sunk in de- 
pravity as we are, all the sympathies of heaven 
should now be awake on the enterprise of him 
who has travailed, in the greatness of his strength, 
to seek and to save us. 

And here I cannot but remark how fine a 
harmony there is between the law of sympathetic 
nature in heaven, and the most touching exhi- 
bitions of it on the face of our world. When one 
of a numerous household droops under the power 
of disease, is not that the one to whom all the 
tenderness is turned, and who, in a manner, mono- 
polizes the inquiries of his neighbourhood, and 
the care of his family ? When the sighing of the 
midnight storm sends a dismal foreboding into the 
mother's heart, to whom of all her offspring, I 
would ask, are her thoughts and her anxieties 
then wandering ? Is it not to her sailor boy whom 
her fancy has placed amid the rude and angry 
surges of the ocean ? Does not this, the hour of 
his apprehended danger, concentrate upon him 
the whole force of her wakeful meditations ? And 
does not he engross, for a season, her every sen- 
sibility, and her every prayer? We sometimes 
hear of shipwrecked passengers thrown upon a 
barbarous shore ; and seized upon by its prowling 



145 



inhabitants ; and hurried away through the tracks 
of a dreary and unknown wilderness; and sold 
into captivity ; and loaded with the fetters of irre- 
coverable bondage; and who, stripped of every 
other liberty but the liberty of thought, feel even 
this to be another ingredient of wretchedness, for 
what can they think of but home, and as all its 
kind and tender imagery comes upon their re- 
membrance, how can they think of it but in the 
bitterness of despair ? Oh tell me when the fame 
of all this disaster reaches his family, who is the 
member of it to whom is directed the full tide of 
its griefs and of its sympathies ? Who is it that, 
for weeks and for months, usurps their every feel- 
ing, and calls out their largest sacrifices, and sets 
them to the busiest expedients for getting him 
back again ? Who is it that makes them forgetful 
of themselves and of all around them; and tell 
me if you can assign a limit to the pains, and the 
exertions, and the surrenders which afflicted pa- 
rents and weeping sisters would make to seek and 
to save him ? 

Now conceive, as we are warranted to do by 
the parables of this chapter, the principle of all 
these earthly exhibitions to be in full operation 
around the throne of God. Conceive the uni- 
verse to be one secure and rejoicing family, and 
that this alienated world is the only strayed, or 
only captive member belonging to it; and we 
shall cease to wonder, that from the first period of 

T 



146 



the captivity of our species, down to the consum- 
mation of their history in time, there should be 
such a movement in heaven ; or that angels should 
so often have sped their commissioned way on the 
errand of our recovery; or that the Son of God 
should have bowed himself down to the burden 
of our mysterious atonement ; or that the Spirit 
of God should now, by the busy variety of his all- 
powerful influences, be carrying forward that dis- 
pensation of grace which is to make us meet for 
re-admittance into the mansions of the celestial. 
Only think of love as the reigning principle there ; 
of love, as sending forth its energies and aspira- 
tions to the quarter where its object is most in 
danger of being for ever lost to it; of love, as 
called forth by this single circumstance to its ut- 
termost exertion, and the most exquisite feeling of 
its tenderness ; and then shall we come to a dis- 
tinct and familiar explanation of this whole mys- 
tery : Nor shall we resist by our incredulity the 
gospel message any longer, though it tells us that 
throughout the whole of this world's history, long 
in our eyes, but only a little month in the high 
periods of immortality, so much of the vigilance, 
and so much of the earnestness of heaven, should 
have been expended on the recovery of its guilty 
population, 

There is another touching trait of nature, which 
goes finely to heighten this principle, and still 
more forcibly to demonstrate its application to out 



147 



present argument. So long as the dying child of 
David was alive, he was kept on the stretch of 
anxiety and of suffering with regard to it. When 
it expired, he arose and comforted himself. This 
narrative of King David is in harmony with all that 
we experience of our own movements and our 
own sensibilities. It is the power of uncertainty 
which gives them so active and so interesting a 
play in our bosoms ; and which heightens all our 
regards to a tenfold pitch of feeling and of exer- 
cise; and which fixes down our watchfulness upon 
our infant's dying bed; and which keeps us so 
painfully alive to every turn and to every symp- 
tom in the progress of its malady; and which 
draws out all our affections for it to a degree of 
intensity that is quite unutterable ; and which 
urges us on to ply our every effort and our every 
expedient, till hope withdraw its lingering beam, 
or till death shut the eyes of our beloved in the 
slumber of its long and its last repose. 

I know not who of you have jour names written 
in the book of life — nor can I tell if this be known 
to the angels which are in heaven. While in the 
land of living men, you are under the power and 
application of a remedy, which, if taken as the 
gospel prescribes, will renovate the soul, and 
altogether prepare it for the bloom and the vigour 
of immortality. Wonder not then that with this 
principle of uncertainty in such full operation, 
ministers should feel for you ; or angels should 



feel for you ; or all the sensibilities of heaven 
should be awake upon the symptoms of your grace 
and reformation ; or the eyes of those who stand 
upon the high eminences of the celestial world, 
should be so earnestly fixed on the every footstep 
and new evolution of your moral history. Such 
a consideration as this should do something more 
than silence the infidel objection. It should give 
a practical effect to the calls of repentance. 
How will it go to aggravate the whole guilt of our 
impenitency, should we stand out against the 
power and the tenderness of these manifold appli- 
cations — the voice of a beseeching God upon us — 
the word of salvation at our very door — the free 
offer of strength and of acceptance sounded in 
our hearing — the Spirit in readiness with his 
agency to meet our every desire and our every 
inquiry — angels beckoning us to their company — 
and the very first movements of our awakened 
conscience drawing upon us all their regards and 
all their earnestness! 



DISCOURSE VI. 



4? THE CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN, AMONGST 
THE HIGHER ORDERS OF INTELLIGENCE. 



ci And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shoV 
of them openly, triumphing over them in it." Col. ii. 15. 

Though these Astronomical Discourses be now 
drawing to a close, it is not because I feel that 
much more might not be said on the subject of 
them, both in the way of argument and of illustra- 
tion. The whole of the infidel difficulty proceeds 
upon the assumption, that the exclusive bearing 
of Christianity is upon the people of our earth; 
that this solitary planet is in no way implicated with 
the concerns of a wider dispensation; that the 
revelation we have of the dealings of God, in this 
district of his empire, does not suit and subordi- 
nate itself to a system of moral administration, as 
extended as is the whole of his monarchy. Or, 
in other words, because infidels have not access 
to the whole truth, will they refuse a part of it 



150 



however well attested or well accredited it may 
be ; because a mantle of <leep obscurity rests on 
the government of God, when taken in all its 
eternity and all its entireness, will they shut their 
eyes against that allowance of light which has been 
made to pass downwards upon our world from 
time to time, through so many partial unfoldings ; 
and till they are made to know the share which 
other planets have in these communications o/ 
mercy, will they turn them away from the actual 
message which has come to their own door, and 
will neither examine its credentials, nor be alarm- 
ed by its warnings, nor be won by the tenderness 
of its invitations. 

On that day when the secrets of all hearts shall 
be revealed, there will be found such a wilful du- 
plicity and darkening of the mind in the whole of 
this proceeding, as shall bring down upon it the 
burden of a righteous condemnation. But, even 
now, does it lie open to the rebuke of philosophy, 
when the soundness and the consistency of her 
principles are brought faithfully to bear upon it. 
Were the character of modern science rightly un- 
derstood, it would be seen, that the very thing 
which gave such strength and sureness to all her 
conclusions, was that humility of spirit which be- 
longed to her. She promulgates all that is posi- 
tively known ; but she maintains the strictest si- 
lence and modesty about all that is unknown. She 
thankfully accepts of evidence wherever it can be 



r 

151 

found ; nor does she spurn away from her the very 
humblest contribution of such doctrine as can be 
witnessed by human observation, or can be attest- 
ed by human veracity. But with all this she can 
hold out most sternly against that power of elo- 
quence and fancy, which often throws so bewitch- 
ing a charm over the plausibilities of ingenious 
speculation. Truth is the alone idol of her re- 
verence ; and did she at all times keep by her at- 
tachments, nor throw them away when theology 
submitted to her cognizance its demonstrations 
and its claims, we should not despair of witness- 
ing as great a revolution in those prevailing ha- 
bitudes of thought which obtain throughout our 
literary establishments, on the subject of Chris- 
tianity, as that which has actually taken place m 
the philosophy of external nature. This is the 
first field on which have been successfully prac- 
tised the experimental lessons of Bacon ; and they 
who are conversant with these matters, know how 
great and how general a uniformity of doctrine 
now prevails in the sciences of astronomy, and 
mechanics, and chemistry, and almost all the other 
departments in the history and philosophy of 
matter. But this uniformity stands strikingly con- 
trasted with the diversity of our moral systems, 
w ith the restless fluctuations both of language and 
of sentiment which are taking place in the philo- 
sophy of mind, with the palpable fact, that every 
new course of instruction upon this subject, has 
seme new articles, or some new explanations to 



152 



peculiarize it : and all this is to be attributed, not 
to the progress of the science, not to a growing, 
but to an alternating movement ; not to its per- 
petual additions, but to its perpetual vibrations* 

I mean not to assert the futility of moral science, 
or to deny her importance, or to insist on the utter 
hopelessness of her advancement The Baconian 
method will not probably push forward her disco- 
veries with such a rapidity, or to such an extent, 
as many of her sanguine disciples have anti- 
cipated. But if the spirit and the maxims of this 
philosophy were at all times proceeded upon, it 
would certainly check that rashness and variety 
of excogitation, in virtue of which it may almost 
be said, that every new course presents us with a 
new system, and that every new teacher has some 
singularity or other to characterize him. She may 
be able to make out an exact transcript of the 
phenomena of mind, and in so doing, she yields a 
most important contribution to the stock of human 
acquirements. But when she attempts to grope 
her darkling way through the counsels of the 
Deity, and the futurities of his administration; 
when, without one passing acknowledgment to 
the embassy which professes to have come from 
him, or to the facts and to the testimonies by 
which it has so illustriously been vindicated, she 
launches forth her own speculations on the charac- 
ter of God, and the destiny of man ; when, though 
this be a subject on which neither the recollec- 



153 



tions of history, nor the ephemeral experience of 
any single life, can furnish one observation to en- 
lighten her, she will nevertheless utter her own 
plausibilities, not merely with a contemptuous 
neglect of the Bible, but in direct opposition to 
it ; then it is high time to remind her of the dif- 
ference between the reverie of him who has not 
seen God, and the well-accredited declaration of 
him who was in the beginning with God, and was 
God ; and to tell her that this, so far from being 
the argument of an ignoble fanaticism, is in 
harmony with the very argument upon which the 
science of experiment has been reared, and by 
which it has been at length delivered from the in- 
fluence of theory, and purified of all its vain and 
visionary splendours. 

In my last Discourses, I have attempted to col- 
lect from the records of God's actual communica- 
tion to the world, such traces of relationship be- 
tween other orders of being and the great family 
of mankind, as serve to prove that Christianity is 
not so paltry and provincial a system as Infidelity 
presumes it to be. And as I said before, I have 
not exhausted all that may legitimately be derived 
upon this subject from the informations of Scrip- 
ture. I have adverted, it is true, to the knowledge 
of our moral history, which obtains throughout 
other provinces of the intelligent creation. I 
have asserted the universal importance which this 
may confer on the transactions even of one planet ? 



154 



in as much as it may spread an honourable dis* 
play of the Godhead amongst all the mansions of 
infinity. I have attempted to expatiate on the 
argument, that an event little in itself, may be so 
pregnant with character, as to furnish all the wor- 
shippers of heaven with a theme of praise for 
eternity. I have stated that nothing is of magni- 
tude in their eyes, but that which serves to endear 
fo them the Father of their spirits, or to shed a 
lustre over the glory of his incomprehensible at- 
tributes — and that thus, from the redemption even 
of our solitary species, there may go forth such 
an exhibition of the Deity, as shall bear the tri- 
umphs of his name to the very outskirts of thv 
universe. 

I have further adverted to another distinct 
Scriptural intimation, that the state of fallen man 
was not only matter of knowledge to other orders 
of creation, but was also matter of deep regret 
and affectionate sympathy; that, agreeably to 
such laws of Sympathy as are most familiar even 
to human observation, the very wretchedness of 
our condition was fitted to concentrate upon us the 
feelings, and the attentions, and the services, of 
the celestial— to single us out for a time to the 
gaze of their most earnest and unceasing contem- 
plation — to draw forth all that was kind and all 
that w as tender within them—and just in propor- 
tion to the need and to the helplessness of us 
miserable exiles from the family of God, to multi- 



155 

J**- <*j \MM*k^ %&k ^ft rtiftii' ti IB^Mi ftn ,j Mr : iTi"V'it J if f Hi III 

ply upon us the regards, and call out in our behalf 
the fond and eager exertions of those who had 
never wandered away from him. This appears 
from the Bible to be the style of that benevolence 
which glows and which circulates around the 
throne of heaven. It is the very benevolence 
which emanates from the throne itself, and the 
attentions of which have for so many thousand 
years signalized the inhabitants of our world. 
This may look a long period for so paltry a world. 
But how have Infidels come to their conception 
that our world is so paltry? By looking abroad 
over the countless systems of immensity. But 
why then have they missed the conception, that 
the time of those peculiar visitations, which they 
look upon as so disproportionate to the magnitude 
of this earth, is just as evanescent as the earth 
itself is insignificant ? Why look they not abroad 
on the countless generations of eternity; and thus 
come back to the conclusion, that after all, the 
redemption of our species is but an ephemeral 
doing in the history of intelligent nature ; that it 
leaves the Author of it room for all the accom- 
plishments of a wise and equal administration; 
and not to mention, that even during the progress 
of it, it withdraws not a single thought or a single 
energy of his from other fields of creation, that 
there remains time enough to him for carrying 
round the visitations of as striking and as peculiar 
a tenderness, over the whole extent of his great 
and universal monarchy ? 



156 



It might serve still further to incorporate the 
concerns of our planet with the general history 
of moral and intelligent beings, to state, not 
merely the knowledge which they take of us, and 
not merely the compassionate anxiety which they 
feel for us ; but to state the importance derived to 
our world from its being the actual theatre of a 
keen and ambitious contest amongst the upper 
orders of creation, *You know that how, for the 
possession of a very small and insulated territory, 
the mightiest empires of the world have put forth 
all their resources; and on some field of muster- 
ing competition have monarchs met, and embark- 
ed for victory, all the pride of a country's talent, 
and all the flower and strength of a country's 
population. The solitary island around which so 
many fleets are hovering, and on the shores of 
which so many armed men are descending, as to 
an arena of hostility, may well wonder at its own 
unlocked for estimation. But other principles are 
animating the battle : and the glory of nations is 
at stake; and a much higher result is in the con- 
templation of each party, than the gain of so hum- 
ble an acquirement as the primary object of the 
war ; and honour, dearer to many a bosom than 
existence, is now the interest on which so much 
blood and so much treasure is expended ; and the 
stirring spirit of emulation has now got hold of the 
combatants ; and thus, amid all the insignificancy 
which attaches to the material origin of the con- 
test, do both the eagerness and the extent of it, 



157 



receive from the constitution of our nature, their 
most full and adequate explanation. 

Now, if this be also the principle of higher na- 
tures — if, on the one hand, God be jealous of his 
honour, and on the other, there be proud and ex- 
alted spirits, who scowl defiance at him and at his 
monarchy — if, on the side of heaven, there be 
an angelic host rallying around the standard of 
loyalty, who flee with alacrity at the bidding of the 
Almighty, who are devoted to his glory, and feel 
a rejoicing interest in the evolution of his coun- 
sels ; and if, on the side of hell, there be a sullen 
front of resistance, a hate and malice inextin- 
guishable, an unquelled daring of revenge to 
baffle the wisdom of the Eternal, and to arrest 
the hand, and to defeat the purposes of Omnipo- 
tence — then let the material prize of victory be 
insignificant as it may, it is the victory in itself 
which upholds the impulse of this keen and stimu- 
lated rivalry. If, by the sagacity of one infernal 
mind, a single planet has been seduced from its 
allegiance, and been brought under the ascendency 
of him who is called in Scripture, " the god of 
this world," and if the errand on which our Re- 
deemer came, was to destrc/ the works of the 
devil — then let this planet have all the littleness 
which astronomy has assigned to it — call it what 
it is, one of the smaller islets which float on the 
ocean of vacancy ; it has become the theatre of 
such a competition, as may have all the desires 



I53 v 



and all the energies of a divided! universe embark- 
ed upon it. It involves in it other objects than 
the single recovery of our species. It decides 
higher questions. It stands linked with the su- 
premacy of God, and will at length demonstrate 
the way in which he inflicts chastisement and 
overthrow upon all his enemies. I know not if 
our rebellious world be the only strong-hold which 
Satan is possessed of, or if it be but the single 
post of an extended warfare, that is now going on 
between the powers of light and of darkness. 
But be it the one or the other, the parties are in 
array, and the spirit of the contest is in full energy, 
and the honour of mighty combatants is at stake ; 
and let us therefore cease to wonder that our 
humble residence has been made the theatre of 
so busy an operation, or that the ambition of 
loftier natures has here put forth all its desire and 
all its strenuousness. 

This unfolds to us another of those high and 
extensive bearings, which the moral history of our 
globe may have on the system of God's universal 
administration. Were an enemy to touch the 
shore of this high-minded country, and to occupy 
so much as one of the humblest of its villages, and 
there to seduce the natives from their loyalty, and 
to sit down along with them in entrenched defiance 
to all the threats, and to all the preparations of 
an insulted empire — oh ! how would the cry of 
wounded pride resound throughout all the ranks 



159 



and varieties of our mighty population ; and this 
very movement of indignancy would reach the 
king upon his throne ; and circulate among those 
who stood in all the grandeur of chieftainship 
around him; and be heard to thrill in the elo* 
quence of Parliament ; and spread so resistless an 
appeal to a nation's honour, and a nation's pa- 
triotism, that the trumpet of war would summon 
to its call all the spirit and all the willing energies 
of our kingdom ; and rather than sit down in 
patient endurance under the burning disgrace of 
such a violation, would the whole of its strength 
and resources be embarked upon the contest ; and 
never, never would we let down our exertions and 
our sacrifices, till either our deluded country- 
men were reclaimed, or till the whole of this 
offence were, by one righteous act of vengeance, 
swept away altogether from the face of the ter- 
ritory it deformed. 

The Bible is always most full and most expla- 
natory on those points of revelation in which men 
are personally interested. But it does at times 
offer a dim transparency, through which may be 
caught a partial view of such designs and of such 
enterprises as are now afloat among the upper 
orders of intelligence. It tells us of a mighty 
struggle that is now going on for a moral ascend- 
ency over the hearts of this world's population,, 
It tells us that our race were seduced from their 
allegiance to God, by the plotting sagacity of one 



160 



whp stands pre-eminent against him, among the 
hosts of a very wide and extended rebellion. It 
tells us of the Captain of Salvation, who undercook 
to spoil him of this triumph ; and throughout the 
whole of that magnificent train of prophecy which 
points to him, does it describe the work he had 
to do, as a conflict, in which strength was to be 
put forth, and painful suffering to be endured, and 
fury to be poured upon enemies, and princi- 
palities to be dethroned, and all those toils, and 
dangers, and difficulties to be borne, which strew- 
ed the path of perseverance that was to carry him 
to victory. 

But it is a contest of skill, as well as of strength 
and of influence. There is the earnest compe- 
tition of angelic faculties embarked on this struggle 
for ascendency. And while in the Bible there is 
recorded, (faintly and partially, we admit,) the 
deep and insidious policy that is practised on the 
one side ; we are also told, that on the plan of our 
world's restoration, there are lavished all the 
riches of an unsearchable wisdom upon the other. 
It would appear, that for the accomplishment of 
his purpose, the great enemy of God and of man 
plied his every calculation ; and brought all the 
devices of his deep and settled malignity to bear 
upon our species ; and thought that could he in- 
volve us in sin, every attribute of the Divinity 
stood staked to the banishment of our race from 
beyond the limits of the empire of righteousness; 



and thus did he practice his invasions on the 
moral territory of the unfallen ; and glorying in 
his success, did he fancy and feel that he had 
achieved a permanent separation between the 
God who sitteth in heaven, and one at least of the 
planetary mansions which he had reared. 

The errand of the Saviour was to restore this 
sinful world, and have its people re-admitted 
within the circle of heaven's pure and righteous 
family. But in the government of heaven, as well 
as in the government of earth, there are certain 
principles which cannot be compromised; and 
certain maxims of administration which must 
never be departed from ; and a certain character 
of majesty and of truth, on which the taint even 
of the slightest violation can never be permitted ; 
and a certain authority which must be upheld by 
the immutability of all its sanctions, and the un- 
erring fulfilment of all its wise and righteous pro- 
clamations. All this was in the mind of the arch- 
angel, and a gleam of malignant joy shot athwart 
him, as he conceived his project for hemming our 
unfortunate species within the bound of an irre- 
coverable dilemma ; and as surely as sin and holi- 
ness could not enter into fellowship, so surely did 
he think, that if man were seduced to disobedi- 
ence, would the truth, and the justice, and the 
immutability of God, lay their insurmountable 
barriers on the path of his future acceptance, 

v 



162 

It was only in that plan of recovery of whiefe 
Jesus Christ was the author and the finisher, that 
the great adversary of our species met with a 
wisdom which over-matched him. It is true, that 
he had reared, in the guilt to which he seduced 
us, a mighty obstacle in the way of this lofty un- 
dertaking. But when the grand expedient was 
announced, and the blood of that atonement, by 
which sinners are brought nigh, was willingly of- 
fered to be shed for us, and the eternal Son, to 
carry this mystery into accomplishment, assumed 
our nature — then w r as the prince of that mighty 
rebellion, in which the fate and the history of our 
world are so deeply implicated, in visible alarm 
for the safety of all his acquisitions : — nor can the 
record of this wondrous history carry forward its 
narrative, without furnishing some transient 
glimpses of a sublime and a superior warfare, in 
which, for the prize of a spiritual dominion over 
our species, we may dimly perceive the contest of 
loftiest talent, and all the designs of heaven in be- 
half of man, met at every point of their evolution* 
by the counterworkings of a rival strength and a 
rival sagacity. 

We there read of a struggle which the Captain 
of our salvation had to sustain, when the lustre of 
the Godhead lay obscured, and the strength of its 
omnipotence was mysteriously weighed down 
under the infirmities of our nature — how Satan 
singled him out, and dared him to the combat of 



16.1 

die wilderness — how all his wiles and all his in- 
fluences were resisted — how he left our Saviour 
in all the triumphs of unsubdued loyalty — how the 
progress of this mighty achievement is marked by 
the every character of a conflict — -how many of the 
Gospel miracles were so many direct infringements 
on the power and empire of a great spiritual re- 
bellion — how in one precious season of gladness 
among the few which brightened the dark career 
of our Saviour's humiliation, he rejoiced in spirit, 
and gave as the cause of it to his disciples, that 
" he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven"' — 
how the momentary advantages that were gotten 
over him, are ascribed to the agency of this in- 
fernal being, who entered the heart of Judas, and 
tempted the disciple to betray his Master and his 
Friend. I know that I am treading on the confines 
of mystery. I cannot tell what the battle that he 
fought. I cannot compute the terror or the 
strength of his enemies. I cannot say, for I have 
not been told, how it was that they stood in mar- 
shalled and hideous array against him : — nor can 
I measure how great the firm daring of his soul, 
when he tasted that cup in all its bitterness, which 
he prayed might pass away from him ; when with 
the feeling that he was forsaken by his God, he 
trod the wine-press alone ; when he entered single- 
handed upon that dreary period of agony, and 
insult, and death, in which, from the garden to 
the cross, he had to bear the burden of a world's 
atonement. I cannot speak in my own language, 



164 



but I can say, in the language of the Bible, of the 
days and the nights of this great enterprise, that 
it was the season of the travail of his soul ; that 
it was the hour and the power of darkness ; that 
the work of our redemption was a work accom- 
panied by the effort, and the violence, and the 
fury of a combat ; by all the arduousness of a battle 
in its progress, and all the glories of a victory in 
its termination : and after he called out that it was 
finished, after he was loosed from the prison-house 
of the grave, after he had ascended up on high, 
he is said to have made captivity captive : and to 
have spoiled principalities and powers ; and to 
have seen his pleasure upon his enemies ; and to 
have made a show of them openly. 

I will not affect a wisdom above that which is 
written, by fancying such details of this warfare 
as the Bible has not laid before me. But surely 
it is no more than being wise up to that which is 
written, to assert that in achieving the redemption 
of our world, a warfare had to be accomplished ; 
that upon this subject there was among the higher 
provinces of creation, the keen and the animated 
conflict of opposing interests; that the result of 
it involved something grander and more affecting, 
than even the fate of this world's population ; that 
it decided a question of rivalship between the 
righteous and everlasting Monarch of universal 
being, and the prince of a great and widely ex- 
tended rebellion, of which I neither know how 



165 



vast is the magnitude, nor how important and di- 
versified are the bearings : and thus do we gather 
from this consideration, another distinct argument, 
helping us to explain, why on the salvation of our 
solitary species so much attention appears to have 
been concentred, and so much energy appears to 
have been expended. 

But it would appear from the Records of Inspi- 
ration, that the contest is not yet ended ; that on 
the one hand the Spirit of God is employed in 
making for the truths of Christianity, a way into 
the human heart, with all the power of an effect- 
ual demonstration; that on the other, there is a 
spirit now abroad, which worketh in the children 
of disobedience ; that on the one hand, the Holy 
Ghost is calling men out of darkness into the mar- 
vellous light of the Gospel ; and that on the other 
hand, he who is styled the god of this world, is 
blinding their hearts, lest the light of the glorious 
gospel of Christ should enter into them ; that they 
who are under the dominion of the one, are said 
to have overcome, because greater is he that is in 
them than he that is in the world ; and that they 
who are under the dominion of the other, are said 
to be the children of the devil, and to be under 
his snare, and to be taken captive by him at his 
will. How these respective powers do operate, 
is one question. The fact of their operation, is 
another. We abstain from the former. We 
attach ourselves to the latter, and gather from it. 



166 



* 



that the prince of darkness still walketh abroad 
amongst us ; that he is still working his insidious 
policy, if not with the vigorous inspiration of hope, 
at least with the frantic energies of despair ; that 
while the overtures of reconciliation are made to 
circulate through the world, he is plying all his 
devices to deafen and to extinguish the impression 
of them ; or, in other words, while a process of 
invitation and of argument has emanated from 
heaven, for reclaiming meii to their loyalty — the 
process is resisted at all its points, by one who 
is putting forth his every expedient, and wielding 
a mysterious ascendency, to seduce and to enthral 
them. 

To an infidel ear, all this carries the sound of 
something wild and visionary along with it 
But though only known through the medium of 
revelation; after it is known, who can fail to re- 
cognize its harmony with the great lineaments 
of human experience ? Who has not felt the 
workings of a rivalry within him, between the 
power of conscience and the power of temptation ? 
Who does not remember those seasons of retire- 
ment, when the calculations of eternity had gotten 
a momentary command over the heart ; and time, 
with all its interests and all its vexations, had 
dwindled into insignificancy before them ? And 
who does not remember, how upon his actual en- 
gagement with the objects of time, they resumed 
a control, as great and as omnipotent, as if all the 



167 



importance of eternity adhered to them — how 
they emitted from them such an impression upon 
his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate the whole 
man into a subserviency to their influence — how 
in spite of every lesson of their worthlessness, 
brought home to him at every turn by the rapidity 
of the seasons, and the vicissitudes of life, and the 
ever-moving progress of his own earthly career, 
and the visible ravages of death among his ac- 
quaintances around him, and the desolations of 
his family, and the constant breaking up of his 
system of friendships, and the affecting spectacle 
of all that lives and is in motion, withering and 
hastening to the grave ; — oh ! how comes it, that 
in the face of all this experience, the whole eleva- 
tion of purpose, conceived in the hour of his better 
understanding, should be dissipated and forgot- 
ten ? Whence the might, and whence the mys- 
tery of that spell, which so binds and so infatuates 
us to the world ? What prompts us so to embark 
the whole strength of our eagerness and of our 
desires in pursuit of interests which we know a 
few little years will bring to utter annihilation? 
Who is it that imparts to them all the charm and 
all the colour of an unfailing durability? Who is 
it that throws such an air of stability over these 
earthly tabernacles, as makes them look to the 
fascinated eye of man like resting-places for eter- 
nity ? Who is it that so pictures out the objects of 
sense, and so magnifies the range of their future 
enjoyment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived 



168 



imagination, that in looking onward through our 
earthly career, it appears like the vista, or the 
perspective of innumerable ages ? He who is 
called the god of this world. He who can dress 
the idleness of its waking dreams in the garb of 
reality. He who can pour a seducing brilliancy 
over the panorama of its fleeting pleasures and 
its vain anticipations. He who can turn it into an 
instrument of deceitfulness ; and make it wield 
such an absolute ascendency over all the affec- 
tions, that man, become the poor slave of its idola- 
tries, and its charms, puts the authority of con* 
science, and the warnings of the Word of God, 
and the offered instigations of the Spirit of God, 
and all the lessons of calculation, and all the wis- 
dom even of his own sound and sober experience, 
away from him. 

But this wondrous contest will come to a close. 
Some will return to their loyalty, and others wili 
keep by their rebellion; and, in the day of the 
winding up of the drama of this world's history, 
there will be made manifest to the myriads of the 
various orders of creation, both the mercy and 
vindicated majesty of the Eternal. Oh ! on that 
day, how vain will this presumption of the Infidel 
astronomer appear, when the affairs of men come 
to be examined in the presence of an innumerable 
company ; and beings of loftiest nature are seen 
to crowd around the judgment-seat; and the Sa- 
viour shall appear in our sky, with a Celestial 



169 



retinue, who have come with him from afar to 
witness all his doings, and to take a deep and 
solemn interest in all his dispensations ; and the 
destiny of our species, whom the Infidel would 
thus detach, in solitary insignificance, from the 
universe altogether, shall be found to merge and 
to mingle with higher destinies — the good to 
spend their eternity with angels— the bad to 
spend their eternity with angels — the former to 
be re-admitted into the universal family of God's 
obedient worshippers— the latter to share in the 
everlasting pain and ignominy of the defeated 
hosts of the rebellious — the people of this planet 
to be implicated, throughout the whole train of 
their never-ending history, with the higher ranks, 
and the more extended tribes of intelligence : And 
thus it is that the special administration we now 
live under, shall be seen to harmonize in its bear- 
ings, and to accord in its magnificence, with all 
that extent of nature and of her territories, which 
modern science has unfolded* 



« 



DISCOURSE VII, 



ON THE SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SEN- 
SIBILITY IN MATTERS OF RELIGION,, 



" And, lo I thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one who 
hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : 
for they hear thy words, but they do them not." — Ezekiel 
xxxiii. 32. 

You easily understand how a taste for music is 
one thing, and a real submission to the influence 
of religion is another: — how the ear may be re- 
galed by the melody of sound, and the heart may 
utterly refuse the proper impression of the sense 
that is conveyed by it— how the sons and daugh- 
ters of the world may, with their every affection 
devoted to its perishable vanities, inhale all the 
delights of enthusiasm, as they sit in crowded as- 
semblage around the deep and solemn oratorio — 
aye, and whether it be the humility of penitential 
feeling, or the rapture of grateful acknowledgment, 
or the sublime of a contemplative piety, or the as- 



171 



piration of pure and of holy purposes, which 
breathes throughout the words of the performance, 
and gives to it all the spirit and all the expression 
by which it is pervaded ; it is a very possible 
thing, that the moral, and the rational, and the 
active man, may have given no entrance into his 
bosom for any of these sentiments; and yet so 
overpowered may he be by the charm of the 
vocal conveyance through which they are ad- 
dressed to him, that he may be made to feel with 
such an emotion, and to weep with such a tender- 
ness, and to kindle with such a transport, and to 
glow with such an elevation, as may one and all 
carry upon them the semblance of sacredness. 

But might not this semblance deceive him? 
Have you never heard any tell, and with compla- 
cency too, how powerfully his devotion was 
awakened by an act of attendance on the oratorio 
—how his heart, melted and subdued by the influ- 
ence of harmony, did homage to all the religion 
of which it was the vehicle — how he was so moved 
and overborne, that he had to shed the tears of 
contrition, and to be agitated by the terrors of 
judgment, and to receive an awe upon his spirit 
of the greatness and the majesty of God — and that 
wrought up to the lofty pitch of eternity, he could 
look down upon the world, and by the glance of 
one commanding survey, pronounce upon the lit- 
tleness and the vanity of all its concerns ? Oh I it 
is very, very possible that all this might thrill upon 



172 

the ears of the man, and circulate a succession of 
solemn and affecting images around his fancy — \ 
and yet that essential principle of his nature^ 
upon which the practical influence of Christianity 
turns, might have met with no reaching and no 
subduing efficacy whatever to arouse it. He 
leaves the exhibition, as dead in trespasses and 
rins as he came to it. Conscience has not 
wakened upon him. Repentance has not turned 
him. Faith has not made any positive lodgement 
within him of her great and her constraining re- 
alities. He speeds him back to his business and 
to his family, and there he plays off the old man 
in all the entireness ofhis uncrucified temper, and 
of his obstinate worldliness, and of all those 
earthly and unsanctified affections, which are 
found to cleave to him with as great tenacity as 
ever. He is really and experimentally the very 
same man as before — and all those sensibilities 
which seemed to bear upon them so much of the 
air and unction of heaven, are found to go into 
dissipation, and be forgotten with the loveliness 
of the song. 

Amid all that illusion which such momentary 
visitations of seriousness and of sentiment throw 
around the character of man, let us never lose 
sight of the test, that " by their fruits ye shall 
know them." It is not coming up to this test, that 
you hear and are delighted. It is that you hear 
and doo This is the ground upon which the re- 



173 



ality of your religion is discriminated now; and 
on the day of reckoning, this is the ground upon 
which your religion will be judged then; and that 
award is to be passed upon you, which will fix 
and perpetuate your destiny for ever. You have 
a taste for music. This no more implies the hold 
and the ascendency of religion over you, than 
that you have a taste for beautiful scenery, or a 
taste for painting, or even a taste for the sensuali- 
ties of epicurism. But music may be made to ex- 
press the glow and the movement of devotional 
feeling; and is it saying nothing to say that the 
heart of him who listens w f ith a raptured ear, is 
through the whole time of the performance, in 
harmony with such a movement? Why, it is say- 
ing nothing to the purpose. Music may lift the 
inspiring note of patriotism ; and the inspiration 
may be felt ; and it may thrill over the recesses 
of the soul, to the mustering up of all its energies; 
and it may sustain to the last cadence of the song, 
the firm nerve and purpose of intrepidity ; and all 
this may be realized upon him, who in the day of 
battle, and upon actual collision with the dangers 
of it, turns out to be a coward. And music may lull 
the feelings into unison with piety ; and stir up the 
inner man to lofty determinations ; and so engage 
for a time his . affections, that as if weaned from 
the dust, they promise an immediate entrance on 
some great and elevated career, which may carry 
him through his pilgrimage superior to all the sor- 
did and grovelling enticements that abound in it. 



174 



But he turns him to the world, and all this glow 
abandons him; and the words which he hath 
heard, he doeth them not; and in the hour of 
temptation he turns out to be a deserter from the 
law of allegiance ; and the test I have now speci- 
fied looks hard upon him, and discriminates him 
amid all the parading insignificance of his fine but 
fugitive emotions, to be the subject both of present 
guilt and of future vengeance. 

The faithful application of this test would put 
to flight a host of other delusions. It may be 
carried round amongst all those phenomena of 
human character, where there is the exhibition of 
something associated with religion, but which is 
not religion itself. An exquisite relish for music 
is no test of the influence of Christianity. Neither 
are many other of the exquisite sensibilities of our 
nature. When a kind mother closes the eyes of 
her expiring babe, she is thrown into a flood of 
sensibility, and soothing to her heart are the sym- 
pathy and the prayers of an attending minister. 
When a gathering neighbourhood assemble to the 
funeral of an acquaintance, one pervading sense 
of regret and tenderness sits on the face of the 
company ; and the deep silence, broken only by 
the solemn utterance of the man of God, carries 
a kind of pleasing religiousness along with it. The 
sacredness of the hallowed day, and the de- 
cencies of its observation, may engage the af- 
fections of him who loves to walk in the footsteps 



175 



of his father ; and every recurring Sabbath may 
bring to his bosom, the charm of its regularity 
and its quietness. Religion has its accompani- 
ments ; and in these, there may be something to 
soothe, and to fascinate, even in the absence of 
the appropriate influences of religion. The deep 
and tender impression of a family-bereavement, is 
not religion. The love of established decencies, 
is not religion. The charm of all that sentimental- 
ism which is associated with many of its solemn 
and affecting services, is not religion. They may 
form the distinct folds of its accustomed drapery ; 
but they do not, any, or all of them put together, 
make up the substance of the thing itself. A 
mother's tenderness may flow most gracefully over 
the tomb of her departed little one ; and she may 
talk the while of that heaven whither its spirit has 
ascended. The man whom death had widowed 
of his friend, may abandon himself to the move- 
ments of that grief, which for a time will claim an 
ascendency over him ; and, amongst the multitude 
of his other reveries, may love to hear of the 
eternity, where sorrow and separation are alike 
unknown. He who has been trained, from his in- 
fant days, to remember the Sabbath, may love 
the holiness of its aspect ; and associate himself 
with all its observances; and take a delighted 
share in the mechanism of its forms. But, let not 
these think, because the tastes and the sensi- 
bilities which engross them, may be blended with 
religion^ that they indicate either its strength or 



176 



its existence within them. I recur to the test. I 
press its imperious exactions upon you. I call for 
fruit, and demand the permanency of a religious 
influence on the habits and the history. Oh! 
how many who take a flattering unction to their 
souls, when they think of their amiable feelings, 
and their becoming observations, with whom this 
severe touch-stone w ould, like the head of Medusa, 
put to flight all their complacency. The afflictive 
dispensation is forgotten— and he on whom it was 
laid, is practically as indifferent to God and to 
eternity as before. The Sabbath services come 
to a close ; and they are followed by the same 
routine of week-day worldliness as before. In 
neither the one case nor the other, do we see 
more of the radical influence of Christianity, than 
in the sublime and melting influence of sacred 
music upon the soul ; and all this tide of emotion 
is found to die away from the bosom, like the 
pathos or like the loveliness of a song. 

The instances may be multiplied without num- 
ber. A man may have a taste for eloquence, and 
eloquence the most touching or sublime may lift 
her pleading voice on the side of religion. A man 
may love to have his understanding stimulated by 
the ingenuities, or the resistless urgencies of an 
argument; and argument the most profound and 
the most overbearing, may put forth all the might 
of a constraining vehemence in behalf of religion* 
A man may feel the rejoicings of a conscious ele- 



177 



nation, when some ideal scene of magnificence is 
luid before him ; and where are these scenes so 
readily to be met with, as when led to expatiate 
in thought over the track of eternity, or to survey 
the wonders of creation, or to look to the magni- 
tude of those great and universal interests which 
lie within the compass of religion. A man may 
have his attention riveted and regaled by that 
power of imitative description, which brings all 
the recollections of his own experience before 
him ; which presents him with a faithful analysis 
of his own heart; which embodies in language 
such intimacies of observation and of feeling, as 
have often passed before his eyes, or played 
within his bosom, but had never been so truly or 
so ably pictured to the view of his remembrance. 
Now, all this may be done in the work of pressing 
the duties of religion ; in the work of instancing 
the applications of religion ; in the work of point- 
ing those allusions to life and to manners, which 
manifest the truth to the conscience, and plant 
such a conviction of sin, as forms the very basis 
of a sinner's religion. Now, in all these cases, 
I see other principles brought into action, and 
which may be in a state of most lively and vigorous 
movement, and be yet in a state of entire sepa- 
ration from the principle of religion. I will make 
bold to say, on the strength of these illustrations, 
that as much delight may emanate from the pulpit, 
m an arrested audience beneath it, as ever ema~ 



178 



naied from the boards of a theatre — aye, and with, 
as total a disjunction of mind too, in the one case 
as in the other, from the essence or the habit of 
religion, I recur to the test. I make my appeal 
to experience ; and I put it to you all, whether 
your finding upon the subject do not agree with 
my saying about it, that a man may weep, and 
admire, and have many of his faculties put upon 
the stretch of their most intense gratification — his 
judgment established, and his fancy enlivened, 
and his feelings overpowered, and his hearing 
charmed, as by the accents of heavenly per- 
suasion, and all within him feasted by the rich 
and varied luxuries of an intellectual banquet ! — 
Oh ! it is cruel to frown unmannerly in the midst 
of so much satisfaction. But I must not forget 
that truth has her authority, as well as her stern- 
ness ; and she forces me to affirm, that after all 
this has been felt and gone through, there might 
not be one principle which lies at the turning-point 
of conversation, that has experienced a single 
movement — not one of its purposes be conceived 
—not one of its doings be accomplished — not one 
step of that repentance, which, if we have not, 
we perish, so much as entered upon — not one an- 
nouncement of that faith, by which we are saved, 
admitted into a real and actual possession by the 
inner man. He has had his hour's entertainment, 
and willingly does he award this homage to the 
performer, that he hath a pleasant voice, and can 
play well on an instrument — but, in another hour, 



179 



it fleets away from his remembrance, and goes all 
to nothing, like the loveliness of a song. 

Now, in bringing these Astronomical Discourses 
to a close, I feel it my duty to advert to this ex- 
Jhibition of character in man. The sublime and 
interesting topic which has engaged us, however 
feebly it may have been handled ; however inade- 
quately it may have been put in all its worth, and 
in all its magnitude before you ; however short 
the representation of the speaker, or the concep- 
tion of the hearers may have been of that rich- 
ness, and that greatness, and that loftiness, which 
belong to it ; possesses in itself a charm to fix the 
attention, and to regale the imagination, and to 
subdue the whole man into a delighted reverence ; 
and, in a word, to beget such a solemnity of 
thought, and of emotion, as may occupy and en- 
large the soul for hours together, as may waft it 
away from the grossness of ordinary life, and raise 
it to a kind of elevated calm above all its vul- 
garities and all its vexations. 

Now, tell me whether the whole of this effect 
upon the feelings, may not be formed without the 
presence of religion. Tell me whether there 
might not be such a constitution of mind, that it 
may both want altogether that principle in virtue 
of which the doctrines of C hristianity are admitted 
into the belief, aid the dudes of Christianity are 
admitted into a government over the practice-— 



100 



and yet, at the very same time, it may have the 
faculty of looking abroad over some scene of 
magnificence, and of being wrought up to ecstasy 
with the sense of all those glories among which it 
is expatiating. I want you to see clearly the dis- 
tinction between these two attributes of the hu- 
man character. They are, in truth, as different 
the one from the other, as a taste for the grand 
and the graceful of scenery differs from the appe- 
tite of hunger; and the one may both exist and 
have a most intense operation within the bosom 
of that very individual, who entirely disowns, and 
is entirely disgusted with the other. What ! must 
a man be converted, ere from the most elevated 
peak of some Alpine wilderness, he beco; le capa- 
ble of feeling the force and the majesty of those 
great lineaments which the hand of nature has 
thrown around him, in the varied forms of preci- 
pice, and mountain, and the wave of mighty 
forests, and the rush of sounding waterfalls, and 
distant glimpses of human territory, and pinnacles 
of everlasting snow, and the sweep of that circling 
horizon, which folds in its ample embrace the 
whole of this noble amphitheatre ? Tell me whe- 
ther, without the aid of Christianity, or without a 
particle of reverence for the only name given 
under heaven whereby men can be saved, a man 
may not kindle at such a perspective as this, into 
all the raptures, and into all the movements of a 
poetic elevation ; and be able to render into the 
language of poetry, the whole of that sublime 



181 



and beauteous imagery which adorns it : aye, and 
as if he were treading on the confines of a sane- 
tuary which he has not entered, may he not mix 
up with the power and the enchantment of his 
description, such allusions to the presiding genius 
of the scene ; or to the still but animating spirit 
of the solitude ; or to the speaking silence of some 
mysterious character which reigns throughout the 
landscape; or, in fine, to that eternal Spirit, who 
sits behind the elements he has formed, and com- 
bines them into all the varieties of a wide and a 
wondrous creation ; might not all this be said and 
sung with an emphasis so moving, as to spread 
the colouring of piety over the pages of him who 
performs thus well upon his instrument ; and yet, 
the performer himself have a conscience unmoved 
by a single warning of God's actual communica- 
tion, and the judgment unconvinced, and the fears 
unawakened, and the life unreformed by it? 

Now what is true of a scene on earth, is also 
true of that wider and more elevated scene which 
stretches over the immensity around it, into a dark 
and a distant unknown. Who does not feel an 
aggrandizement of thought and of faculty, when 
he looks abroad over the amplitudes of creation — 
when placed on a telescopic eminence, his aided 
eye can find a pathway to innumerable worlds— 
when that wondrous field, over which there had 
hung for many ages the mantle of so deep an ob- 
scurity, is laid open to him, and instead of a 



182 



dreary and unpeopled solitude, he can see over 
the whole face of it such an extended garniture 
of rich and goodly habitations ! Even the Atheist, 
who tells us that the universe is self-existent and 
indestructible— even he, who instead of seeing 
the traces of a manifold wisdom in its manifold 
varieties, sees nothing in them all but the exqui- 
site structures and the lofty dimensions of mate- 
rialism — even he, who would despoil creation of 
its God, cannot look upon its golden suns, and 
their accompanying systems, without the solemn 
impression of a magnificence that fixes and over- 
powers him. Now, conceive such a belief of God 
as you all profess, to dawn upon his understand- 
ing. Let him become as one of yourselves — and 
so be put into the condition of rising from the 
sublime of matter to the sublime of mind. Let 
him now learn to subordinate the whole of this 
mechanism to the design and authority of a great 
presiding Intelligence: and re-assembling all the 
members of the universe, however distant, into 
one family, let him mingle with his former concep- 
tions of the grandeur which belonged to it, the 
conception of that eternal Spirit who sits en- 
throned on the immensity of his own wonders, 
and embraces all that he has made, within the 
ample scope of one great administration. Then 
will the images and the impressions of sublimity 
come in upon him from a new quarter. Then will 
another avenue be opened? through which a sense 
of grandeur may find its way into his soul, and 



183 



have a mightier influence than ever to fill, and to 
elevate, and to expand it. Then will he establish- 
ed a new and a noble association, by the aid of 
which all that he formerly looked upon as fair, 
becomes more lovely; and all that he formerly 
looked upon as great, becomes more magnificent. 
But will you believe me, that even with this ac- 
cession to his mind of ideas gathered from the 
contemplation of the Divinity ; even with that 
pleasurable glow which steals over his imagina- 
tion, when he now thinks him of the majesty of 
God; even with as much of what you would call 
piety, as I fear is enough to soothe and to satisfy 
many of yourselves, and which stirs and kindles 
within you when you hear the goings forth of the 
Supreme set before you in the terms of a lofty 
representation ; even with all this, I say there may 
be as wide a distance from the habit and the 
character of godliness, as if God was still atheist- 
ic ally disowned by him. Take the conduct of his 
life and the currency of his affections; and you 
may see as little upon them of the stamp of loyalty 
to God, or of reverence for any one of his authen- 
ticated proclamations, as you may see in him who 
offers his poetic incense to the genii or weeps en- 
raptured over the visions of a beauteous mytholo- 
gy. The sublime of Deity has wrought up his 
soul to a pitch of conscious and pleasing elevation 
— and yet this no more argues the will of Deity 
to have a practical authority over him, than does 
that tone of elevation which is caught by looking 



184 



at the sublime of a naked materialism. The one 
and the other have their little hour of ascendency 
over him ; and when he turns him to the rude and 
ordinary world, both vanish alike from his sensi- 
bilities, as does the loveliness of a song. 

To kindle and be elevated by a sense of the 
majesty of God, is one thing. It is totally another 
thing, to feel a movement of obedience to the will 
of God, under the impression of his rightful au- 
thority over all the creatures whom he has form- 
ed. A man may have an imagination all alive 
to the former; while the latter never prompts 
him to one act of obedience; never leads him to 
compare his life with .the requirements of the Law- 
giver ; never carries him from such a scrutiny as 
this, to the conviction of sin; never whispers 
such an accusation to the ear of his conscience, 
as causes him to mourn, and to be in heaviness 
for the guilt of his hourly and habitual rebellion ; 
never shuts him up to the conclusion of the need 
of a Saviour ; never humbles him to acquiescence 
in the doctrine of that revelation, which comes to 
his door with such a host of evidence, as even his 
own philosophy cannot bid away; never extorts 
a single believing prayer in the name of Christ, 
or points a single look/either of trust or of reve- 
rence, to his atonement ; never stirs any effective 
movement of conversion ; never sends an aspiring 
energy into his bosom after the aids of that Spirit, 
who alone can waken him out of his lethargies, 



105 



and by the anointing which remaineth, can rivet 
and substantiate in his practice, those goodly 
emotions which have hitherto plied him with the 
deceitfulness of their momentary visits, and then 
capriciously abandoned him. 

The mere majesty of God's power and great- 
ness, when offered to your notice, lays hold of one 
of the faculties within you. The holiness of God, 
with his righteous claim of legislation, lays hold 
of another of these faculties. The difference 
between them is so great, that the one may be en- 
grossed and interested to the full, while the other 
remains untouched, and in a state of entire dor- 
mancy. Now, it is no matter what it be that 
ministers delight to the former of these two facul- 
ties : If the latter be not arrested and put on its 
proper exercise, you are making no approxima- 
tion whatever to the right habit and character of 
religion. There are a thousand ways in which we 
may contrive to regale your taste for that which 
is beauteous and majestic. It may find its gratifi- 
cation in the loveliness of a vale, or in the freer 
and bolder outlines of an upland situation, or in 
the terrors of a storm, or in the sublime contem- 
plations of astronomy, or in the magnificent idea 
of a God who sends forth the wakefulness of his 
omniscient eye, and the vigour of his upholding 
hand, throughout all the realms of nature and of 
providence. The mere taste of the human mind 
may get its ample enjoyment in each and in all of 

■ ■ & Y 



186 



these objects, or in a vivid representation of them ; 
nor does it make any material difference, whether 
this representation be addressed to you from the 
stanzas of a poem, or from the recitations of a 
theatre, or finally from the discourses and the de* 
monstrations of a pulpit. And thus it is, that still 
on the impulse of the one principle only, people 
may come in gathering multitudes to the house of 
God; and share with eagerness in all the glow 
and bustle of a crowded attendance ; and have 
their every eye directed to the speaker; and feel 
a responding movement in their bosom to his 
many appeals and hi3 many arguments; and 
carry a solemn and overpowering impression of 
all the services away with them ; and yet through- 
out the whole of this seemly exhibition, not one 
effectual knock may have been given at the door 
of conscience. The other principle may be as 
profoundly asleep, as if hushed into the insensi- 
bility of death. There is a spirit of deep slumber, 
it would appear, which the music of no descrip- 
tion, even though attuned to a theme so lofty as 
the greatness and majesty of the Godhead, can 
ever charm away. Oh ! it may have been a piece 
of parading insignificance altogether — the minis- 
ter playing on his favourite instrument, and the 
people dissipating away their time on the charm 
and idle luxury of a theatrical emotion. 



The religion of taste, is one thing. The reli? 
gion of conscience, is another. I recur to the 



1S7 

test. What is ihe plain and practical doing which 
ought to issue from the whole of our argument? If 
one lesson come more clearly or more authorita- 
tively out of it than another, it is the supremacy 
of the Bible. If fitted to impress one movement 
rather than another, it is that movement of doci- 
lity, in virtue of which, man, with the feeling that 
he has all to learn, places himself in the attitude 
of a little child, before the book of the unsearcha- 
ble God, who has deigned to break his silence, and 
to transmit, even to our age of the world, a faithful 
record of his ow 7 n communication. What pro- 
gress then are you making in this movement? Are 
you, or are you not, like new-born babes, desiring 
the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow 
thereby ? How are you coming on in the work of 
easting down your lofty imaginations ? With the 
modesty of true science, which is here at one 
with the humblest and most penitentiary feeling 
which Christianity can awaken, are you bending 
an eye of earnestness on the Bible, and appro- 
priating its informations, and moulding your every 
conviction to its doctrines and its testimonies? 
How long, I beseech you, has this been your 
habitual exercise ? By this time do you feel the 
darkness and the insufficiency of nature ? Have 
you found your way to the need of an atonement ? 
Have you learned the might and the efficacy 
which are given to the principle of faith ? Have 
you longed with all your energies to realize it ? 
Have you broken loose from the obvious misdo- 



188 



ings of your former history ? Are you convinced 
of your total deficiency from the spiritual obe- 
dience of the affections ? Have you read of the 
Holy Ghost, by whom, renewed in the whole 
desire and character of your mind, you are led to 
run with alacrity in the way of the command- 
ments ? Have you turned to its practical use, the 
important truth, that he is given to the believing 
prayers of all, who really want to be relieved 
from the power both of secret and of visible ini- 
quity ? I demand something more than the homage 
you have rendered to the pleasantness of the 
voice that has been sounding in your hearing. 
What I have now to urge upon you, is the bidding 
of the voice, to read, and to reform, and to pray, 
and, in a word, to make your consistent step from 
the elevations of philosophy, to all those exer- 
cises, whether of doing or of believing, which 
mark the conduct of the earnest, and the devoted, 
and the subdued, and the aspiring Christian. 

This brings under our view a most deeply in- 
teresting exhibition of human nature, which may 
often be witnessed among the cultivated orders of 
society. When a teacher of Christianity addresses 
himself to that principle of justice within us, in 
virtue of which we feel the authority of God to be 
a prerogative which righteously belongs to him, 
he is then speaking the appropriate language of 
religion, and is advancing its naked and ap- 
propriate claim over the obedience of mankind. 



189 



He is then urging that pertinent and powerful con- 
sideration, upon which alone he can ever hope to 
obtain the ascendency of a practical influence 
over the purposes and the conduct of human be- 
ings. It is only by insisting on the moral claim of 
God to a right of government over his creatures, 
that he can carry their loyal subordination to the 
will of God. Let him keep by this single argu- 
ment, and urge it upon the conscience, and then, 
without any of the other accompaniments of what 
is called Christian oratory, he may bring con- 
vincingly home upon his hearers all the varieties 
of Christian doctrine. He may establish within 
their minds the dominion of all that is essential in 
the faith of the New Testament. He may, by 
carrying out this principle of God's authority into 
all its applications, convince them of sin. He 
may lead them to compare the loftiness and spi- 
rituality of his law, with the habitual obstinacy of 
their own worldly affections. He may awaken 
them to the need of a Saviour. He may urge 
them to a faithful and submissive perusal of God's 
own communication. He may thence press upon 
them the truth and the immutability of their So- 
vereign. He may work in their hearts an im- 
pression of this emphatic saying, that God is not 
to be mocked — that his law must be upheld in all 
the significancy of its proclamations — and that 
either its severities must be discharged upon the 
guilty, or in some other way an adequate provision 
be found for its outraged dignity, and its violated 



190 



sanctions. Thus may he lead them to flee for re- 
fuge to the blood of the atonement. And he may 
further urge upon his hearers, how, such is the 
enormity of sin, that it is not enough to have 
found an expiation for it ; how its power and its 
existence must be eradicated from the hearts of 
all, who are to spend th^ir eternity in the mansions 
of the celestial ; how, for this purpose, an ex- 
pedient is made known to us in the New Testa- 
ment; how a process must be described upon 
earth, to which there is given the appropriate 
name of sanctification ; how, at the very com- 
mencement of every true course of discipleship, 
this process is entered upon with a purpose in the 
mind of forsaking all ; how nothing short of a 
single devotedness to the will of God, will ever 
carry us forward through the successive stages of 
this holy and elevated career; how, to help the 
infirmities of our nature, the Spirit is ever in 
readiness to be given to those who ask it ; and 
that thus the life of every Christian becomes a 
life of entire dedication to him who died for us — 
a life of prayer, and vigilance, and close depend- 
ence on the grace of God — and, as the infallible 
result of the plain but powerful and peculiar 
teaching of the Bible, a life of vigorous unwearied 
activity in the doing of all the commandments. 

Now, this I would call the essential business of 
Christianity. This is the truth as it is in Jesus, in 
its naked and unassociated simplicity. In the 



191 



work of urging it, nothing more might have been 
done, than to present certain views, which may 
come with as great clearness, and freshness, and 
take as full possession of the mind of a peasant, 
as of the mind of a philosopher. There is a sense 
of God, and of the rightful allegiance that is due 
to him. There are plain and practical appeals to 
the conscience. There is a comparison of the 
state of the heart, with the requirements of a law 
which proposes to take the heart under its obedi* 
ence. There is the inward discernment of its 
coldness about God ; of its unconcern about the 
matters of duty and of eternity ; of its de- 
votion to the forbidden objects of sense ; of 
its constant tendency to nourish within its own 
receptacles, the very element and principle of 
rebellion, and in virtue of this, to send forth 
the stream of an hourly and accumulating diso- 
bedience over those doings of the outer man, 
which make up his visible history in the world. 
There is such an earnest and overpowering im- 
pression of all this, as will fix a man down to the 
single object of deliverance; as will make him 
awake only to those realities which have a signi- 
ficant and substantial bearing on the case that en- 
grosses him ; as will teach him to nauseate all the 
impertinences of tasteful and ambitious descrip- 
tion ; as will attach him to the truth in its simpli- 
city; as will fasten his every regard upon the 
Bible, where, if he persevere in the work of 
honest inquiry, he will soon be made to perceive 



192 



the accordancy between its statements, and all 
those movements of fear, or guilt, or deeply-felt 
necessity, or conscious darkness, stupidity, and 
unconcern about the matters of salvation, which 
pass within his own bosom; in a word, as will 
endear him to that plainness of speech, by which 
his own experience is set evidently before him, 
and that plain phraseology of Scripture, which is 
best fitted to bring home to him the doctrine of 
redemption, in all the truth and in all the pre- 
ciousness of its applications. 

Now, the whole of this work may be going on, 
and that too in the wisest and most effectual man- 
ner, without so much as one particle of incense 
being offered to any of the subordinate principles 
of the human constitution. There may be no 
fascinations of style. There may be no magnifi- 
cence of description. There may be no poign- 
ancy of acute and irresistible argument. There 
may be a riveted attention on the part of those 
whom the Spirit of God hath awakened to seri- 
ousness about the plain and affecting realities of 
conversion. Their conscience may be stricken, 
and their appetite be excited for an actual settle- 
ment of mind on those points about which they 
feel restless and unconfirmed. Such as these are 
vastly too much engrossed with the exigencies of 
their condition, to be repelled by the homeliness 
of unadorned truth. And thus it is, that while the 
loveliness of the song has done so little in helping 



193 



on the influences of "the- gospel, our men of sim- 
plicity and prayer have done so much for it, 
With a deep and earnest impression of the truth 
themselves/; they have made manifest that truth 
to the consciences of others. Missionaries have 
gone forth with no other preparation than the 
simple Word of the Testimony— and thousands 
have owned its power, by being both the hearers 
of the word and the doers of it also. They have 
given us the experiment in a state of unmingled 
simplicity ; and' we learn, from the success of 
their noble example, that without any one human 
expedient to charm the ear, the heart may, by 
the naked instrumentality of the Word of God, 
urged with plainness on those who feel its deceit 
and its worthlessness, be charmed to an entire 
acquiescence in the revealed way of God, and 
have impressed upon it the genuine stamp and 
character of godliness. 

Could the sense of what is due to God, be ef- 
fectually stirred up within the human bosom, it 
would lead to a practical carrying of all the les- 
sons of Christianity. Now, to aw r aken this moral 
sense, there are certain simple relations between 
the creature and the Creator, which must be 
dearly apprehended, and manifested with power 
unto the conscience. We believe, that however 
much philosophers may talk about the compara- 
tive ease of forming those conceptions which are 
simple, they will, if in good earnest after a right 



194 



footing with God, soon discover in their own 
minds, all that darkness and incapacity about spi- 
ritual things, which are so broadly announced to 
us in the New Testament. And, oh ! it is a deep- 
ly interesting spectacle, to behold a man, who can 
take a masterly and commanding survey over the 
field of some human speculation, who can clear 
his discriminated way through all the turns and 
ingenuities of some human argument, who by the 
march of a mighty and resistless demonstration, 
can ^caie with assured footstep the sublimities of 
science, and from his firm stand on the eminence 
he has won, can descry some wondrous range of 
natural or intellectual truth spread out in subor- 
dination before him : — and yet this very man may, 
in reference to the moral and authoritative claims 
of the Godhead, be in a state of utter apathy and 
blindness ! All his attempts, either at the spiritual 
discernment, or the practical impression of this 
doctrine, may be arrested and baffled by the 
weight of some great inexplicable impotency. A 
man of homely talents, and still homelier educa- 
tion, may see what he cannot see, and feel what 
he cannot feel ; and wise and prudent as he is, 
there may lie the barrier of an obstinate and im- 
penetrable concealment, between his accomplish- 
ed mind, and those things which are revealed unto 
babes. 

But while his mind is thus utterly devoid of 
what may be called the main or elemental princi- 



195 



pie of theology, he may have a far quicker appre- 
hension, and have his taste and his feelings much 
more powerfully interested, than the simple Chris- 
tian who is beside him, by what may be called 
the circumstantials of theology. He can throw a 
wider and more rapid glance over the magnitudes 
of creation. He can be more delicately alive to 
the beauties and the sublimities which abound in 
it. He can, when the idea of a presiding God is 
suggested to him, have a more kindling sense of 
his natural majesty, and be able, both in imagina- 
tion and in words, to surround the throne of the 
Divinity by the blazonry of more great, and 
splendid, and elevating images. And yet, with 
all those powers of conception which he does 
possess, he may not possess that on which prac- 
tical Christianity hinges. The moral relation be- 
tween him and God, may neither be effectively 
perceived, nor faithfully proceeded on. Con- 
science may be in a state of the most entire dor- 
mancy, and the man be regaling himself with the 
magnificence of God, while he neither loves God, 
nor believes God, nor obeys God. 

And here I cannot but remark, how much effect 
and simplicity go together in the annals of Mora- 
vianism. The men of this truly interesting de- 
nomination, address themselves exclusively to that 
principle of our nature, on which the proper influ- 
ence of Christianity turns. Or, in other words/ 



196 



they take up the subject of the gospel message 
that message devised by him who knew what was 
in man, and who, therefore, knew how to make 
the right and the suitable application to man. — - 
They urge the plain word of the Testimony ; and 
they pray for a blessing from on high ; and that 
thick impalpable veil, by which the god of this 
world blinds the hearts of men who believe not, 
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should 
enter into them— that veil, which no power of phi- 
losophy can draw aside, gives way to the demon- 
stration of the Spirit; and thus it is, that a clear 
perception of Scriptural truth, and all the fresh- 
ness and permanency of its moral influences, are 
to be met with among men who have just emerg- 
ed from the rudest and the grossest barbarity. — 
Oh ! when one looks at the number and the great- 
ness of their achievements — -when he thinks of the 
change they have made on materials so coarse and 
so unpromising — when he eyes the villages they 
have formed — and around the whole of that en- 
gaging perspective by which they have chequered 
and relieved the grim solitude of the desert, he 
witnesses the love, and listens to the piety of re- 
claimed savages ; — who would not long to be in 
possession of the charm by which they have 
wrought this wondrous transformation — who 
would not willingly exchange for it all the parade 
of human eloquence, and all the confidence of 
human argument — and for the wisdom of winning 



197 



soute, who is there that would not rejoice to throw 
the loveliness of the song, and all the insignificancy 
of its passing fascinations, away from him ? 

And yet it is right that every cavil against 
Christianity should be met, and evjery argument 
for it be exhibited, and all the graces and sublimi- 
ties of its doctrine be held out to their merited 
admiration. And if it be true, as it certainly is, 
that throughout the whole of this process, a man 
may be carried rejoicingly along from the mere in^ 
dulgence of his taste, and the mere play and ex- 
ercise of his understanding ; while conscience is 
untouched, and the supremacy of moral claims 
upon the heart and the conduct is practically dis- 
owned by him — it is further right that this should 
be adverted to ; and that such a melancholy 
unhingement in the constitution of man should be 
fully laid open ; and that he should be driven out 
of the seductive complacency which he is so apt 
to cherish, merely because he delights in the love- 
liness of the song; and that he should be urged 
with the imperiousness of a demand which still re- 
mains unsatisfied, to turn him from the corrupt in- 
difference of nature, and to become personally a 
religious man ; and that he should be assured how 
all the gratification he felt in listening to the word 
which respected the kingdom of God, will be of 
no avail, unless that kingdom come to himself in 
power — that it will only go to heighten the per- 
versity of his character— -that it will not extenuate 



198 



his real and practical ungodliness, but will serve 
most fearfully to aggravate the condemnation of it, 

With a religion so argumentable as ours, it may 
be easy to gather out of it a feast for the human 
understanding. With a religion so magnificent as 
ours, it may be easy to gather out of it a feast for 
the human imagination. But with a religion so 
humbling, and so strict, and so spiritual, it is not 
easy to mortify the pride ; or to quell the strong 
enmity of nature ; or to arrest the currency of the 
affections ; or to turn the constitutional habits ; or 
to pour a new complexion over the moral history ; 
or to stem the domineering influence of things 
seen and things sensible ; or to invest faith with a 
practical supremacy ; or to give its objects such a 
vivacity of influence as shall overpower the near 
and the hourly impressions, that are ever emanat- 
ing upon man from a seducing world. It is here 
that man feels himself treading upon the limit of 
his helplessness. It is here that he sees where 
the strength of nature ends ; and the power of 
grace must either be put forth, or leave him to 
grope his darkling way, without one inch of pro- 
gress toward the life and the substance of Chris- 
tianity. It is here that a barrier rises on the con- 
templation of the inquirer — the barrier of sepa- 
ration between the carnal and the spiritual, and 
on which he may idly waste the every energy 
which belongs to him, in the enterprise of sur- 
mounting it. It is here, that after having walked 



199 



the round of nature's acquisitions, and lavished 
upon the truth all his ingenuities, and surveyed it 
in its every palpable character of grace and 
majesty ; he will still feel himself on a level with 
the simplest and most untutored of the species. 
He needs the power of a living manifestation. 
He needs the anointing which remaineth. He 
needs that which fixes and perpetuates a stable 
revolution upon the character, and in virtue of 
which he may be advanced from the state of one 
who hears, and is delighted, to the state of one who 
hears, and is a doer. Oh S how strikingly is the 
experience even of vigorous and accomplished 
nature at one on this point with the announce- 
ments of revelation, that to work this change, 
there must be the putting forth of a peculiar 
agency ; and that it is an agency, which, withheld 
from the exercise of loftiest talent, is often brought 
down on an impressed audience, through the 
humblest of all instrumentality, with the demon- 
stration of the Spirit and with power. 

Think it not enough, that you carry in your 
bosom an expanding sense of the magnificence of 
creation. But pray for a subduing sense of the 
authority of the Creator. Think it not enough* 
that with the justness of a philosophical discern- 
ment, you have traced that boundary which hems 
in all the possibilities of human attainment, and 
have found that all beyond it is a dark and fa- 
thomless unknown. But let this modesty of 



200 



science be carried, as in consistency it ought* to 
the question of revelation, and let all the antipa- 
thies of nature be schooled to acquiescence in 
the authentic testimonies of the Bible. Think it 
not enough, that you have looked with sensibility 
and wonder at the representation of God throned 
in immensity, yet combining with the vastness of 
his entire superintendence, a most thorough in* 
spection into all the minute and countless diversi- 
ties of existence. Think of your own heart a& 
one of these diversities ; and that he ponders aH 
its tendencies ; and has an eye upon all its move- 
ments ; and marks all its waywardness ; and, God 
of judgment as he is, records its every secret, and 
its every sin, in the book of his remembrance. 
Think it not enough, that you have been led to 
associate a grandeur with the salvation of the 
New Testament, when made to understand that it 
draws upon it the regards of an arrested universe. 
How is it arresting your own mind ! What has 
been the earnestness of your personal regards to- 
wards it ? And tell me, if all its faith, and all its 
repentance, and all its holiness are not disowned 
by you ? Think it not enough, that you have felt 
a sentimental charm when angels were pictured 
to your fancy as beckoning you to their mansions, 
and anxiously looking to the every symptom of 
your grace and reformation. Oh ! be constrained 
by the power of all this tenderness, and yield 
yourselves up in a practical obedience to the 
call of the Lord God merciful and gracious 



201 



Think it not enough, that you have shared for a 
moment in the deep and busy interest of that ar- 
duous conflict which is now going on for a moral 
ascendency over the species. Remember that 
the conflict is for each of you individually; and 
let this alarm you into a watchfulness against the 
power of every temptation, and a cleaving de- 
pendence upon him through whom alone you will 
be more than conquerors. Above all, forget not, 
that while you only hear and are delighted, you 
are still under nature's powerlessness, and na- 
ture's condemnation — and that the foundation is 
not laid, the mighty and essential change is not 
accomplished, the transition from death unto life 
is not undergone, the saving faith is not formed, 
nor the passage taken from darkness to the mar- 
vellous light of the gospel, till you are both hear- 
ers of the word and doers also. " For if any be 
a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like 
unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass ; 
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and 
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he 
was." 



a a 



APPENDIX. 



wvvww*< 



The writer of these Discourses has drawn up 
the following compilation of passages from Scrip- 
ture, as serving to illustrate or to confirm the lead- 
ing arguments which have been employed in each 
separate division of his subject, 



DISCOURSE I. 



In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
Gen. i. 1. 

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and ail the 
host of them. Gen. ii. 1. 

Behold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord's 
thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Deut. x. 14. 

There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon 
the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. Deut. 
xxxiii. 26. 

And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God 
of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the 
God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth ; thou 
hast made heaven and earth. 2 Kings xix. 15. 

For all the gods of the people are idols : but the Lord made 
the heavens. 1 Chronicles xvi. 26. 

Thou, even thou, art Lord alone ; thou hast made heaven, the 
heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things 
that are therein, the seas and all that is therein ; and thou pre- 
servest them all 5 and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. Ne- 
liemiah ix« 6* 



204 



Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the 
waves of the sea; which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, 
and the chambers of the south. Job ix. 8, 9. 

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth 
the earth upon nothing. Job xxvi. K. 

By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens. Job xxvi. 13. 

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament 
showeth his handy-work. Psalm xix. 1. 

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all the 
host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psalm xxxiii. 6. 

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the hea- 
vens are the work of thy hands. Psalm cii. 25. 

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who 
stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. Psalm civ. 2. 

He appointed the moon for seasons ; the sun knoweth his going 
down. Psalm civ. 19. 

You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. 
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's : but the earth 
hath he given to the children of men. Psalm cxv. 15, 16. 

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 
Psalm cxxi. 2. 

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and 
earth. Psalm cxxiv. 8. 

The Lord that made heaven and earth, bless thee out of Zion, 
Psalm cxxxiv. 3. 

Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is. - 
Psalm cxlvi. 6. 

The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; by understand- 
ing hath he established the heavens. Prov. iii. 19- 

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and 
meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the 
earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and 
the hills in a balance. Isa. xl. 12. 

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inha- 
bitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the hea- 
vens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in* 
Isa, xl. 22, 



205 



Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and 
stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that 
which cometh out of it ; he that giveth breath unto the people 
upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. Isa. xlii. 5. 

Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee 
from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that 
stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the 
earth by myself. Isa. xliv. 24. 

I have made the earth, and created man upon it ; I, even my 
hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I 
commanded. Isa. xlv. 12. 

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself 
that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he 
created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. Isa. xlv. 18* 

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my 
right hand hath spanned the heavens; when I call unto them, 
they stand up together. Isa. xlviii. 13. 

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the 
world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his 
discretion. Jer. x. 12. 

Ah Lord God ! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the 
earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is 
nothing too hard for thee. Jer. xxxii. 17. 

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the 
world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his 
understanding. Jer. li. 15. 

It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath found- 
ed his troop in the earth ; he that calleth for the waters of the 
sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, The Lord 
is his name. Amos ix. 6. 

We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unt© 
you, that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God^ 
which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that 
are therein. Acts xiv. 15. 

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he 
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the 
worlds* Heb. i. 2o 



2(/6 

Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the 
earth ; and the heavens are the work of thine hands. Heb. 
L 10. 

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by 
the word of God. Heb. xi. 3. 



DISCOURSE II. 

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those 
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for 
ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deut xxix* 29. 

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my 
cause 5 Which doeth great things and unsearchable ; marvellous 
things without number. Job. v. 8, 9. 

Which doeth great things past finding out ; yea, and wonders 
without number. Job. ix. 10. 

Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out 
the Almighty unto perfection ? Job xi. 7- 

Hast thou heard the secret of God ? and dost thou restrain 
wisdom to thyself? Job xv. 8. 

Lo, these are parts of his ways 5 but how little a portion is 
heard of him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand ? 
Job xxvi. 14. 

Behold, God is great, and we know him not ; neither can the 
number of his years be searched out. Job. xxxvi. 26. 

God thundereth marvellously with his voice ; great things 
doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. Job xxxvii. 5. 

Touching the Almighty, We cannot find him out : he is ex- 
cellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice. Job 
xxxvii. 23. 

Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and 
thy footsteps are not known. Psalm lxxvii. 19. 

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised'; and his great* 
ness is unsearchable. Psalm cxlv e 3, 



207 



' For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways 
my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than 
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my 
thoughts than your thoughts. Isa. Iv. 8, 9^ 

Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as 
little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. — 
Matth. xviii. 3. 

Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom 
of God, as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein. Luke 
xviii. 17. 

O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge 
of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past 
finding out I For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? Or who 
hath been his counsellor ? Rom. xi. 33, 34. 

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth 
to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be 
wise. 1 Cor. iii. 18. 

For if a man thinketh himself to be something, when he is 
nothing, he deceiveth himself. Gal. vi. 3. 

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain 
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, 
and not after Christ. Col. ii. 8. 

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding 
profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so 
called. 1 Tim. vi. 20. 



DISCOURSE in. 

But will God indeed dwell on the earth ? Behold, the heaven* 
and heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how mucfc less 
this house that I have builded ? Yet have thou respect unto the 
prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, 
to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant 
prayeth before thee to-day : That thine eyes may be open to.-- 



208 



ward this house night and day, even toward the place of which 
thou hast said, My name shall be there; that thou mayest 
hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward 
this place. 1 Kings viii. 27, 28, 29. 

For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the 
whole heaven. Job xxviii. 24. 

For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his 
goings. Jobxxxiv. 21. 

Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly. 
Psalm cxxxviii. 6. 

O Lord thou hast searched me and known me. Thou know- 
est my down-sitting and mine up-rising : thou understandest my 
thought afar off. Thou Compassest my path and my lying down, 
and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word 
In my tongue, but lo, O Lord ! thou knowest it altogether. 
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon 
me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I 
cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or 
whither shall I flee from thy presence ? Psalm cxxxix. 1 — 7- 

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God ! how 
great is the sum of them ! If I should count them, they are more 
in number than the sand : when I awake, I am still with thee.-— 
Psalm cxxxix. 17, 18. 

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and 
the good. Prov. xv. 3. 

Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him ? 
saith the Lord : do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord. 
Jer. xxiii. 24. 

Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth 
them. Are ye not much better than they ? And why take ye 
thought for raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field how they 
grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : And yet I say unto you, 
That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one 
of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not 
much move clothe you, O ye of little faith? Matt vL 26, 28, 29, 
so. 



209 



But the very hairs of your head are all numbered, Matth. 
X 30. 

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight i 
but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with 
whom we have to do. Heb. iv. 13. 



DISCOURSE IV. 

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and 
the top of it reached to heaven : and behold the angels of God 
ascending and descending on it. Gen. xxviii. 12. 

For a thousand years in thy sight, are but as yesterday when 
it is past, and as a watch in the night. Psalm xc. 4. 

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth be- 
neath : for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the 
earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein 
shall die in like manner ; but my salvation shall be for ever, and 
my righteousness shall not be abolished. Isa, li. 6. 

For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with 
his angels ; and then he shall reward every man according to his 
works. Matth. xvi. 27- 

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. 
Matth. xxv. 31. 

Also, I say onto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, 
him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. 
But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the 
angels of God. Luke xii. 8, 9. 

And he saith unto him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter 
ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and 
descending upon the Son of Man. John i. 51. 

B b 



210 



We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to 
men. 1 Cor. iv. 9. 

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a 
name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, 
and things under the earth : and that every tongue should confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Phil, 
ii. 9, 10, 11. 

When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his 
mighty angels. 2 Thess. i. J. 

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness : 
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, 
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up 
into glory. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
elect angels, that thou observe these things. 1 Tim. v. 21. 

And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, 
he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. Heb. i. 6. 

But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company 
of angels, To the general assembly and church of the first born, 
which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to 
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator 
of the new covenant. Hebrews xii. 22, 23, 24. 

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day 
is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some 
men count slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 
that are therein, shall be burnt up. 2 Peter iii. 8, 9, 10. 

And4he angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the 
earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that livetli 
for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that there- 



211 



in are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea 
and the things which are therein, that there should be time no 
longer. Rev. x. 5, 6. 

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 
If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his 
mark in his forehead or in his hand, The same shall drink of the 
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture 
into the cup of his indignation ; and he shall be tormented with 
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the 
presence of the Lamb. Rev. xiv. 9, 10. 

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from 
whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was 
found no place for them. Rev. xx. 11. 



DISCOURSE V. 

And Nathan departed unto his house : and the Lord struck the 
child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. 
David, therefore, besought God for the child : and David fasted, 
and went in and lay aH night upon the earth. And the elders of 
his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth 5 
Jbut he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it 
came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the 
servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead 5 
for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake 
unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice ; how will 
he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead ? But 
when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived 
that the child was dead : therefore David said unto his servants, 
Is the child dea£? And they said, he is dead, Then Davi4 



212 



arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and 
changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and 
worshipped : then he came to his own house : and, when he re- 
quired, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his 
servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done ? Thou 
didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive : but when the 
child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, while 
the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept : for I said, who can 
tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live ? 
But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast ? can I bring him 
back again ? I shall go to him, but he shall not return.to me. 
2 $am. xii. 15—23. 

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear 
him, and delivereth them. Psalm xxxiv. 7. 

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in 
all thy ways. Psalm xci. 2. 

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet \ 
and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, 
from the one end of heaven to the other. Matth. xxiv. 31. 

Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the 
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Luke xv. 10. 

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for 
them who shall be heirs of salvation? Heb. i. 14. 



DISCOURSE VI. 

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be 
tempted of the devil. Matth. iv. 1. 

The enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the harvest is the 
end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. The Son of 
Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his 



213 



kingdom all things that offend, and them whfch do iniquity, 
Matth. xiii. 39,41. 

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart 
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
and his angels. Matth. xxv. 41. 

And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of 
an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us 
alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? 
art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art : the 
Holy One of God. Luke iv. 33, 34. 

Those by the way-side are they that hear 5 then cometh the 
devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they 
should believe and be saved. Luke viii. 12. 

But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every king- 
dom divided against itself is brought to desolation ; and a house 
divided against a house, falleth. If Satan also be divided 
against himself, how shall his kingdom stand ? because ye say 
that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. Luke xi. IT, 18. 

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father 
ye will do ; he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode 
not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he 
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, and the 
father of it. John viii. 44. 

And supper being ended, (the devil having now put into the 
heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.) John 
xiii. 2. 

But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to 
lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of 
the land ? Acts v. 3. 

To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, 
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are 
sanctified by faith that is in me. Acts xxvi. 18. 

And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet 
shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 
Amen. Rom. xvi, 20. 



214 



Lest Satan should get an advantage of us : for we are not Ig- 
norant of his devices. 2 Cor. ii. 11. 

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them 
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, 
who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 2 Cor. 

iv. 4. 

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of 
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the 
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Eph. 
iL 2. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh 
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in high places. Eph. vi. 1 J , 12. 

For some are already turned aside after Satan. 1 Tim. v. 15. 

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and 
Mood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that 
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, 
that is the devil. Heb. ii. 14. 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and 
lie will flee from you. James iv. 1. 

Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a 
roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour : Whom 
resist, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are 
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 1 Pet. 

v. 8, 9. 

He that committeth sin, is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth 
from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was mani- 
fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 

In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the 
devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither 
he that loveth not his brother. 1 John iii. 8, 10. 

Ye are of God, little Children, and have overcome them $ be- 
cause greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.— 
1 John iv. 4. 



215 



And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their 
own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under 
darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. Jude 6. 

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment $ 
and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will 
confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. Rev. 
iii. 5. 

And there was war in heaven : Michael and his angels fought 
against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels, And 
prevailed not ; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. 
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the 
Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world 5 he was cast 
out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.— 
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Wo 
to the inhabited of the earth and of the sea ! for the devil is come 
down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he 
hath but a short time. Rev. xii. 7, 8, 9 ? 12. 

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the 
Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And when 
the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out o£ his 
prison. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake 
of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are*, 
and shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever. Rev, 
xx. 2, 7, 10. 



DISCOURSE VIL 

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, ano! 
doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
house upon a rock : And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
anB the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not: 



216 



for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth 
these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto 
a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand ; And the rain 
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat 
upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall of it. Matt, 
vii. 24 — 2J. 

At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Fa- 
ther ! Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these 
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes. Matth. xi. 25. 

Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drank in thy 
presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, 
I tell you, I know you not whence ye are : depart from me all ye 
workers of iniquity. Luke xiii. 26, 27. 

For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the 
doers of the law shall be justified. Rom. ii. 13. 

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency 
of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of 
God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save 
Jesus Christ and him crucified. And my speech and my preach- 
ing was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon- 
stration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not 
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now 
we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which 
is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given 
to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words 
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teach- 
eth.; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are 
foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because the/ 
are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. I, 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14. 

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 1 Ccr, 
iii. 19- 

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 1 Cor. 

to, 20. 



217 



Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of 
Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit 
of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of 
the heart. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any 
thing as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God ; Who also 
hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; not of the 
letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 
life. 2 Cor. iii. 3, 5, 6. 

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 
knowledge of him : The eyes of your understanding being en- 
lightened that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and 
what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And 
what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who be- 
lieve, according to the working of his mighty power. Eph. i. 
17, 18, 19. 

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and 
sins. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, Eph. ii. 1, 10. 

For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in 
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. 1 Thes. 
i. 5. 

Of his own will begat he us with the word of trut h, that we 
should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures. 

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving 
yourselves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, 
he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For 
he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway for- 
getteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the 
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a for- 
getful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed 
in his deed. James i. 18. 22 — 25. 

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy 
nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of 
him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light 
1 Pet, ii. 9. 



218 



But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all 
things. 

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in 
you : and ye need not that any man teach you r but as the same 
anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, 
and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. 1 John iL 
20, 27. 



THE END 



SERMON, 



PREACHED IN 



ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH,^EDINRURGH 3 



BEFORE THE 



SOCIETY 



RELIEF OF THE DESTITUTE - SICK< 



LORD'S DAY, APRIL 18, 1813, 

nd published in consequence of their earnest request. 



BY THOMAS CHALMERS , 

MINISTER OF KILMANY. 



NEW-YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCETT7. 
1817. 



PSALM XLI. 1. 

Blessed is he that considereth the Poor ; the Lord will de- 
liver him in time of trouble" 

THERE is an evident want of congeniality be- 
tween the wisdom of this world, and the wisdom 
of the Christian. The term " wisdom," carries my 
reverence along with it. It brings before me a 
grave and respectable character, whose rationality- 
predominates over the inferior principles of his 
constitution, and to whom I willingly yield that 
peculiar homage which the enlightened, and the 
judicious, and the manly, are sure to exact from a 
surrounding neighbourhood. Now, so long as this 
wisdom has for its object same secular advantage, 
I yield it an unqualified reverence. It is a rever- 
ence which all understand, and all sympathise 
with. If, in private life, a man be wise in the ma- 
nagement of his farm, or his fortune, or his family; 
or if, in public life, he have wisdom to steer an 
empire through all its difficulties, and to carry it to 
aggrandisement and renown — the respect which I 
feel for such wisdom as this, is most cordial and 
entire, and supported by the universal acknowledg- 
ment of all whom I call to attend to it. 

Let me now suppose that this wisdom has 



4 



changed its object— that the man whom I am re- 
presenting to exemplify this respectable attribute, 
instead of being wise for time, is wise for eternity — 
that he labours by the faith and sanctification of 
the gospel for imperishable honours — that, instead 
of listening to him with admiration at his sagacity, 
as he talks of business, or politics, or agriculture, 
we are compelled to listen to him talking of the 
hope within the vail, and of Christ being the pow- 
er of God, and the wisdom of God, unto salvation. 
What becomes of your respect for him now ? Are 
there not some of you who are quite sensible that 
this respect is greatly impaired, since the wisdom 
of the man has taken so unaccountable a change 
in its object and in its direction ? The truth is, that 
the greater part of the world feel no respect at all 
for a wisdom which they do not comprehend. They 
may love the innocence of a decidedly religious 
character, but they feel no sublime or command- 
ing sentiment of veneration for its wisdom. All the 
truth of the Bible, and all the grandeur of eternity, 
will not redeem it from a certain degree of con- 
tempt. Terms which lower, undervalue, and de- 
grade, suggest themselves to the mind; and strong- 
ly dispose it to throw a mean and disagreeable co- 
louring over the man who, sitting loose to the ob- 
jects of the world, has become altogether a Chris- 
tian. It is needless to expatiate : but what I have 
seen myself, and w r hat must have fallen under the 
observation of many whom I address, carry in them 
the testimony of experience to the assertion of the 



a 



Apostle, u . that the things of the spirit of God are 
foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know 
thern, for they are spiritually discerned." 

Now, what I have said of the respectable attri- 
bute of wisdom, is applicable, with almost no vari- 
ation, to another attribute of the human character, 
to which I would assign the gentler epithet of 
" lovely." The attribute to which I allude, is that 
of benevolence. This is the burden of every poet's 
song, and every eloquent and interesting enthusi- 
ast gives it his testimony. I speak not of the en- 
thusiasm of methodists and devotees — I speak of 
that enthusiasm of fine sentiment which embel- 
lishes the pages of elegant literature, and is ad- 
dressed to all her sighing and amiable votaries, in 
the various forms of novel, and poetry, and dramatic 
entertainment. You would think if any thing could 
bring the Christian at one with the world around 
him, it would be this; and that, in the ardent bene- 
volence which figures in novels, and sparkles in poe- 
try, there would be an entire congeniality with the 
benevolence of the gospel. I venture to say, how- 
ever, that there never existed a stronger repulsion 
between two contending sentiments, than between 
the benevolence of the Christian, and the benevo- 
lence which is the theme of elegant literature— 
that the one, with all its accompaniments of tears, 
and sensibilities, and interesting cottages, is neither 
felt nor understood by the Christian as such ; and the 
other, with its work and labours of love — its en- 
during hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, 



6 



and its living, not to itself, but to the will of Him 
who died for us, and who rose again, is not only not 
understood, but positively nauseated, by the poe- 
tical amateur. 1 

But the contrast does not stop here. The be- 
nevolence of the gospel is not only at antipodes 
'With the visionary sons and daughters of poetry, 
butit even varies in some of its most distinguishing 
features with the experimental benevolence of 
real and familiar life. The fantastic benevolence 
of poetry is now indeed pretty well exploded ; and, 
in the more popular works of the age, there is a be- 
nevolence of a far truer and more substantial kind 
substituted in its place—the benevolence which 
you meet with among men of business and obser- 
vation—the benevolence which bustles and finds 
employment among the most public and ordinary 
scenes, and which seeks for objects, not where the 
flower blows loveliest, and the stream, with its gen- 
tle murmurs, falls sweetest on the ear, but finds 
them in his every day walks — goes in quest of 
them through the heart of the great city, and is not 
afraid to meet them in its most putrid lanes and 
loathsome receptacles. 

Now, it must be acknowledged, that this bene- 
volence is of a far more respectable kind than that 
poetic sensibility, which is of no use, because it 
admits of no application. Yet I am not afraid to 
say, that, respectable as it is, it does not come up 
to the benevolence of the Christian, and is at vari- 
ance, in some of its most capital ingredients, with 



7 



the morality of the gospel. It is well, and very 
well, as far as it goes ; and that Christian is wanting 
to the will of his master who refuses to share and 
go along with it. The Christian will do all this, 
but he would like to do more ; and it is at the pre- 
cise point where he proposes to do more, that he 
finds himself abandoned by the co-operation and 
good wishes of those who had hitherto supported 
him. The Christian goes as far as the votary of 
this useful benevolence, but then he would like to 
go further, and this is the point at which he is mor- 
tified to find that his old coadjutors refuse to 
go along with him; and that, instead of being 
strengthened by their assistance, he has their con- 
tempt and their ridicule ; or, at all events, their 
total want of sympathy, to contend with. The 
truth is, that the benevolence I allude to, with all 
its respectable air of business and good sense, is 
altogether a secular benevolence. Through all 
the extent of its operations, it carries in it no 
reference to the eternal duration of its object. 
Time, and the accommodations of time, form all 
its subject, and all its exercise. It labours, and 
often with success, to provide for its object a warm 
and well-sheltered tenement, but it looks not be- 
yond the few little years when the earthly house- 
of this tabernacle shall be dissolved — when the 
soul shall be driven from its perishable tenement, 
and the only benevolence it will acknowledge or 
care for, will be the benevolence of those who 
have directed it to a building not made with hands. 



8 



eternal in the heavens. This, then, is the point 
at which the benevolence of the gospel separates 
from that worldly benevolence, to which, as far as 
it goes, I offer my cheerful and unmingled testi- 
mony. The one minds earthly things, the other 
has its conversation in heaven. Even when the 
immediate object of both is the same, you will ge- 
nerally perceive an evident distinction in the prin- 
ciple. Individuals, for example, may co-operate, 
and will often meet in the same room, be members 
of the same society, and go hand-in-hand cordi- 
ally together for the education of the poor. But 
the forming habits of virtuous industry, and good 
members of society, which are the sole considera- 
tion in the heart of the worldly philanthropist, are 
but mere accessions in the heart of the Christian. 
The main impulse of his benevolence lies in fur- 
nishing the poor with the means of enjoying that 
bread of life which came down from heaven, 
and in introducing them to the knowledge of 
those scriptures which are the power of God unto 
salvation to every one who believeth. Now, it is 
so far a blessing to the w 7 orld that there is a co-ope - 
ration in the immediate object. But what I con- 
tend for, is, that there is a total want of congenial 
ity in the principle — that the moment you strip the 
institution of its temporal advantages, and make it 
repose on the naked grandeur of eternity, it is fallen 
from, or laughed at, as one of the chimeras of fa- 
naticism, and left to the despised efforts of those 
whom they esteem to be unaccountable people. 



9 



who subscribe for missions, and squander their 
money on Bible societies. Strange effect, you 
would think, of eternity to degrade the object 
with which it is connected ! But so it is. The 
blaze of glory, which is thrown around the martyr- 
dom of a patriot or a philosopher, is refused to the 
martyrdom of a Christian. When a statesman dies 3 
who lifted his intrepid voice for the liberty of the 
species, we hear of nothing but of the shrines and 
the monuments of immortality. Put into his place 
one of those sturdy reformers, who, unmoved by 
councils and inquisitions, stood up for the religious 
liberties of the world: and it is no sooner done, 
than the full tide of congenial sympathy and admi- 
ration is at once arrested. We have all heard of 
the benevolent apostleship of Howard, and what 
Christian will be behind his fellows with his ap- 
plauding testimony? But will they, on the other 
hand, share his enthusiasm, when he tells them of 
the apostleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer sense 
of the term, accomplished the liberty of the cap- 
tive, and brought them that sat in darkness out of 
the prison-house ? Will they share in the holy be- 
nevolence of the apostle, when he pours out his 
ardent effusions in behalf of his countrymen? 
They were at that time on the eve of the cruellest 
sufferings. The whole vengeance of the Roman 
power was mustering to bear upon them. The 
siege and destruction of their city form one of the 
most dreadful tragedies in the history of war. Yet 
Paul seems to have had another object in his eye, 

2 



10 



It was their souls and their eternity which en- 
grossed him. Can you sympathise with him in 
this principle, or join in kindred benevolence with 
him, when he says, that " my heart's desire and 
prayer for Israel is that they might be saved ?" 

But to bring my list of examples to a close, the 
most remarkable of them all may be collected from 
the history of the present attempts which are now 
making to carry the knowledge of divine revelation 
into the Pagan and uncivilized countries of the 
world. Now, it may be my ignorance, but I am 
certainly not aware of the fact, that without a book 
of religious faith — -without religion, in fact, .being 
the errand and occasion, we have ever been able 
in modern times so far to compel the attention 
and to subdue the habits of savages, as to throw 
in among them the use and the possession of a 
written language. Certain it is, however, at all 
events, that this very greatest step in the process of 
converting a wild man of the woods into a human- 
ized member of society, has been accomplished by 
Christian missionaries. They have put into the 
hands of barbarians this mighty instrument of a 
written language, and they have taught them how 
to use it.* They have formed an orthography for 

* As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the Moravian bre- 
thren among the Indians of New-England and Pennsylvania; 
the Moravians of South-America ; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Mo- 
ravians in Greenland ; the latter in Labradore, among the Eski- 
raaux ; the missionaries of Otaheite, and other South Sea islands ; 
and Mr. Brunton, under the patronage of the Society for Mis- 



11 

wandering and untutored savages. They have 
given a shape and a name to their barbarous arti- 
culations ; and the children of men, w ho lived on 
the prey of the wilderness, are now forming in vil- 
lage schools to the arts and the decencies of culti- 
vated life. Now, lam not involving you in the con- 
troversy whether civilization should precede Chris- 
tianity, or Christianity should precede civilization. 
It is not to w hat has been said on the subject, but 
to what has been done that we are pointing your 
attention. We appeal to the fact ; and as an illus- 
tration of the principle we have been attempting to 
lay before you, we call upon you to mark the feel- 
ings, and the countenance, and the language, of the 
mere academic moralist, when you put into his 
hand the authentic and proper document where the 
fact is recorded — we mean a missionary report, or 
a missionary magazine. We know that there are 
men who have so much of the firm nerve and hardi- 
hood of philosophy about them, as not to be re- 
pelled from truth in whatever shape, or from what- 
ever quarter it comes to them. But there are 
others of a humbler cast, w r ho have transferred their 
homage from the omnipotence of truth, to the om- 
nipotence of a name, who, because missionaries, 
while they are accomplishing the civilization are 

sions to Africa and the East, who reduced the language of the 
Susoos, a nation on the coast of Africa, to writing and grammati- 
cal form, and printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, catechism, 
and some tracts. Other instances besides might be given. 



12 

labouring also for the eternity of savages, have lift- 
ed up the cry of fanaticism against them— who, be- 
cause missionaries revere the word of God, and 
litter themselves in the language of the New Tes- 
tament, nauseate every word that comes from 
them as overrun with the flavour and phraseology 
of methodism — who, are determined, in short, to 
abominate all that is missionary, and suffer the 
very sound of the epithet to fill their minds with 
an overwhelming association of repugnance, and 
prejudice, and disgust. 

We would not have counted this so remarkable 
an example, had it not been that missionaries are 
accomplishing the very object on which the advo- 
cates for civilization love to expatiate. They are 
working for the temporal good far more effectually 
than any adventurer in the cause ever did before ; 
but mark the want of congeniality between the be- 
nevolence of this world, and the benevolence of the 
Christian ; they incur contempt, because they are 
working for the spiritual and eternal good also. 
Nor do the earthly blessings which they scatter so 
abundantly in their way, redeem from scorn the 
purer and the nobler principle which inspires them. 

These observations seem to be an applicable 
introduction to the subject before us. I call your 
attention to the way in which the Bible enjoins us 
to take up the care of the poor. It does not say, in 
the text before us, Commiserate the poor; for, if it 
said no more than this, it would leave their necessi- 
ties to be provided for by the random ebullitions of 



13 



an impetuous and unreflecting sympathy. It pro- 
vides them with a better security than the mere feel- 
ing of compassion — afeeling which, however useful 
for the purpose of excitement, must be controlled 
and regulated. Feeling is but a faint and fluctuat- 
ing security. Fancy may mislead it. The sober 
realities of life may disgust it. Disappointment 
may extinguish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. 
Deceit, with its counterfeit representations, may 
allure it to the wrong object. At all events, Time 
is the little circle within which it in general expa- 
tiates. It needs the impression of sensible ob- 
jects to sustain it ; nor can it enter with zeal 
or with vivacity into the wants of the abstract 
and invisible soul. The Bible, then, instead of 
leaving the relief of the poor to the mere instinct 
of sympathy, makes it a subject for consideration — 
Blessed is he that considereth the poor — a grave 
and prosaic exercise I do allow, and which makes 
no figure in those high wrought descriptions, where 
the exquisite tale of benevolence is made up of all 
the sensibilities of tenderness on the one hand, and 
of all the ecstacies of gratitude on the other. The 
Bible rescues the cause from the mischief to which 
a heedless or unthinking sensibility would expose 
it. It brings it under the cognizance of a higher 
faculty — a faculty of steadier operation than to be 
weary in well-doing, and of sturdier endurance 
than to give it up in disgust. It calls you to consi- 
der the poor. It makes the virtue of relieving them 
a matter of computation as well as of sentiment : 



14 



and, in so doing, it puts you beyond the reach of 
the various delusions by which you are at one time 
led to prefer the indulgence of pity to the sub- 
stantial interest of its object ; at another, are led 
to retire chagrined and disappointed from , the 
scene of duty, because you have not met with the 
gratitude or the honesty that you laid your account 
with ; at another, are led to expend all your anxi- 
eties upon the accommodation of time, and to 
overlook eternity. It is the office of consideration 
to save you from all these fallacies. Under its tu- 
torage, attention to the wants of the poor ripens 
into principle. I want, my brethren, to press its 
advantages upon you, for I can in no other way 
recommend the society whose claims I am ap- 
pointed to lay before you, so effectually to your 
patronage. My time will only permit me to lay 
before you a few of their advantages, and I shall 
therefore confine myself to two leading particulars. 

1. The man who considers the poor, instead of 
slumbering over the emotions of a useless sensi- 
bility, among those imaginary beings whom poetry 
and romance have laid before him in all the ele- 
gance of fictitious history, will bestow the labour 
and the attention of actual business among the 
poor of the real and the living world. Benevolence 
is the burden of every romantic tale, and of every 
poet's song. It is dressed out in all the fairy en- 
chantments of imagery and eloquence. All is 
beauty to the eye and music to the ear. Nothing 



15 



seen but pictures of felicity, and nothing heard but 
the soft whispers of gratitude and affection. The 
reader is carried along by this soft and delightful 
representation of virtue. He accompanies his hero 
through all the fancied varieties of his history. He 
goes along with him to the cottage of poverty and 
disease, surrounded, as we may suppose, with all 
the charms of rural obscurity, and where the mur- 
murs of an adjoining rivulet accord with the finer 
and more benevolent sensibilities of the mind. He 
enters this enchanting retirement, and meets with 
a picture of distress, adorned in all the elegance of 
fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed of languish- 
ing, and supported by the labours of a pious and 
affectionate family, where kindness breathes in 
every word, and anxiety sits upon every counte- 
nance — where the industry of his children strug- 
gles in vain to supply the cordials which his po- 
verty denies him — where nature sinks every hour, 
and all feel a gloomy foreboding, which they strive 
to conceal, and tremble to express. The hero of 
romance enters, and the glance of his benevolent 
eye enlightens this darkest recess of misery. He 
turns him to the bed of languishing, tells the sick 
man that there is still hope, and smiles comfort on 
his despairing children. Day after day, he repeats 
his kindness and his charity. They hail his ap- 
proach as the footsteps of an angel of mercy. The 
father lives to bless his deliverer. The family re- 
ward his benevolence by the homage of an affec- 
tionate gratitude ; and, in the piety of their even- 



16 



ing prayer, offer up thanks to the God of heaven, 
for opening the hearts of the rich to kindly and be- 
neficent attentions. The reader weeps with de- 
light. The visions of paradise play before his fan- 
cy. His tears flow, and his heart dissolves in ail 
the luxury of tenderness. 

Now, we do not deny that the members of the 
Destitute Sick Society may at times have met with 
some such delightful scene to soothe and encou- 
rage them. But put the question to any of their 
visiters, and he will not fail to tell you, that if they 
had never moved but when they had something 
like this to excite and to gratify their hearts, they 
would seldom have moved at all; and their useful- 
ness to the poor would have been reduced to a very 
humble fraction of what they have actually done 
for them. What is this but to say, that it is the bu- 
siness of a religious instructor to give you, not the 
elegant, but the true representation of benevo- 
lence — to represent it not so much as a luxurious 
indulgence to the finer sensibilities of the mind, 
but according to the sober declaration of Scripture, 
as a work and as a labour — as a business in which 
you must encounter vexation, opposition, and fa- 
tigue ; where you are not always to meet with that 
elegance which allures the fancy, or with that hum- 
ble and retired adversity, which interests the more 
tender propensities of the heart ; but as a business 
where reluctance must often be overcome by a 
sense of duty ; and where, though oppressed at 
every step, by envy, disgust, and disappointment, 



17 



you are bound to persevere, in obedience to the 
law of God, and (he sober instigation of principle. 

The benevolence of the gospel lies in actions. 
The benevolence of our fictitious writers, in a kind 
of high-wrought delicacy of feeling and sentiment. 
The one dissipates all its fervour in sighs and tears, 
and idle aspirations — the other reserves its strength 
for efforts and execution. The one regards it as a 
luxurious enjoyment for the heart — -the other, as a 
work and business for the hand. The one sits in 
indolence, and broods, in visionary rapture, over its 
schemes of ideal philanthropy—the other steps 
abroad, and enlightens, by its presence, the dark 
and pestilential hovels of disease. The one wastes 
away in empty ejaculation — the other gives time 
and trouble to the work of beneficence — gives edu- 
cation to the orphan — provides clothes for the na- 
ked, and lays food on the table of the hungry. The 
one is indolent and capricious, and often does mis- 
chief by the occasional overflowings of a whimsi- 
cal and ill-directed charity — the other is vigilant 
and discerning, and takes care lest his distributions 
be injudicious, and the effort of benevolence be 
misapplied. The one is soothed with the luxury 
of feeling, and reclines in easy and indolent satis- 
faction — the other shakes off the deceitful languor 
of contemplation and solitude, and delights in a 
scene of activity. Remember, that virtue, in ge- 
neral, is not to feel, but to do — not merely to con- 
ceive a purpose, but to carry that purpose into 
execution — not merely to be overpowered by the 

3 



m 

impression of a sentiment, but to practise what it 
loves, and to imitate what it admires. 

To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be 
selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the 
indolence of man delude him into a thousand in- 
consistencies. He professes to love the name and 
the sem-. lance of virtue, but the labour of exertion 
and of self-denial terrifies him from attempting it. 
The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bo- 
som, but then they are little better than a selfish in- 
dulgence — they terminate in his own enjoyment — 
they are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye 
melts over the picture of fictitious distress, while 
not a tear is left for the actual starvation and mi- 
sery with which he is surrounded. It is easy to 
indulge the imaginations of a visionary heart in 
going over a scene of fancied affliction, because 
here there is no sloth to overcome — no avaricious 
propensity to control — no offensive or disgusting cir- 
cumstance to allay the unmingled impression of 
sympathy which a soft and elegant picture is cal- 
culated to awaken. It is not so easy to be benevo- 
lent in action and in reality, because here there is fa- 
tigue to undergo — there is time and money to give 
—there is the mortifying spectacle of vice, and 
folly, and ingratitude, to encounter. We like to 
give you the fair picture of love to man, because to 
throw over it false and fictitious embellishments, 
is injurious to its cause. These elevate the fancy 
by romantic visions which can never be realized. 
They embitter the heart by the most severe and 



19 



mortifying disappointments, and often force us to 
retire in disgust from what heaven has intended to 
be the theatre of our discipline and preparation. 
Take the representation of the Bible. Benevolence 
is a work and a labour. It often calls for the se- 
verest efforts of vigilance and industry — a habit of 
action not be acquired in the school of fine senti- 
ment, but in the walks of business, in the dark and 
dismal receptacles of misery — in the hospitals of 
disease — in the putrid lanes of great cities, where 
poverty dwells in lank and ragged wretchedness, 
agonized with pain, faint with hunger, and shiver- 
ing in a frail and unsheltered tenement. 

You are not to conceive yourself a real lover of 
your species, and entitled to the praise or the re- 
ward of benevolence because you weep over a 
fictitious representation of human misery. A man 
may weep in the indolence of a studious and con- 
templative retirement ; he may breathe all the ten- 
der aspirations of humanity ; but what avails all 
this warm and effusive benevolence, if it is never 
exerted — if it never rise to execution — if it never 
carry him to the accomplishment of a singte be- 
nevolent purpose — if it shrink from activity, and 
sicken at the pain of fatigue ? It is easy, indeed, to 
come forward with the cant and hypocrisy of fine 
sentiment — to have a heart trained to the emotions 
of benevolence, while the hand refuses the labours 
of discharging its offices— to weep for amusement, 
and to have nothing to spare for human suffering 
but the tribute of an indolent and unmeaning sym- 



20 



pathy. Many of you must be acquainted with that 
corruption of Christian doctrine which has been 
termed Antinoraianism. It professes the highest 
reverence for the Supreme Being, while it refuses 
obedience to the lessons of his authority. It 
professes the highest gratitude for the suffer- 
ings of Christ, while it refuses that course of 
life and action which he demands of his followers. 
It professes to adore the tremendous Majesty of 
heaven, and to weep in shame and in sorrow over 
the sinfulness of degraded humanity, while every 
day it insults heaven by the enormity of its mis- 
deeds, and evinces the insincerity of its wilful per- 
severance in the practice of iniquity. This Antino- 
mianism is generally condemned; and none repro- 
bate it more than the votaries of fine sentiment — your 
men of taste and elegant literature — your epicures 
of feeling, who riot in all the luxury of theatrical 
emotion, and who, in their admiration of what is 
tender, and beautiful, and cultivated, have always 
turned with disgust from the doctrines of a sour 
and illiberal theology. We may say to such, as 
Nathan to David, "Thou art the man. 5 ' Theirs 
is to all intents and purposes Antinomianism — and 
an Antinomianism of a far more dangerous and de- 
ceitful kind, than the Antinomianism of a spurious 
and pretended orthodoxy. In the Antinomianism 
of religion, there is nothing to fascinate or deceive 
you. It wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more fit- 
ted to awaken disgust, than to gain the admiration 
of proselytes. There is a glaring deformity in its 



21 



aspect, which alarms you at the very outset, and is 
an outrage to that natural morality which, dark 
and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough to lift 
its loud remonstrance against it. But in the Anti- 
nomianism of high-wrought sentiment, there is a 
deception far more insinuating, ft steals upon you ' 
under the semblance of virtue. It is supported by 
the delusive colouring of imagination and poetry. 
It has all the graces and embellishments of litera- 
ture to recommend it. Vanity is soothed, and con- 
science lulls itself to repose in this dream of feeling 
and of indolence. 

Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and regulate 
our lives by the truth and soberness of the New 
Testament. Benevolence is not in word and in 
tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business 
with men as they are, and with human life as drawn 
by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which 
you must perform at the call of principle, though 
there be no voice of eloquence to give splendour 
to your exertions, and no music or poetry to lead 
your willing footsteps through the bowers of en- 
chantment. It is not the impulse of high and ec- 
static emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You 
must go to the poor man's cottage, though no ver- 
dure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to 
delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If 
you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction, you 
will be disappointed : but it is your duty to perse- 
vere, hi spite of every discouragement. Benevo- 
lence is not merely a feeling, but a principle — not 



22 



a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a 
business for the hand to execute. 

It must now be obvious to all of you, that it is 
not enough that you give money, and add your 
name to the contributors of charity— you must give 
it with judgment. You must give your time and 
your attention. You must descend to the trouble 
of examination. You must rise from the repose of 
contemplation, and make yourself acquainted with 
the objects of your benevolent exercises. Will he 
husband your charity with care, or will he squander 
it away in idleness and dissipation ? Will he satisfy 
himself with the brutal luxury of the moment, and 
neglect the supply of his more substantial necessi- 
ties, or suffer his children to be trained in igno- 
rance and depravity ? Will charity corrupt him by 
laziness ? What is his peculiar necessity ? Is it 
the want of health or the want of employment ? 
Is it the pressure of a numerous family ? Does he 
need medicine to administer to the diseases of his 
children ? Does he need fuel or raiment to protect 
them from the inclemency of winter? Does he 
need money to satisfy the yearly demands of his 
landlord, or to purchase books and to pay for the 
education of his offspring ? 

To give money is not to do all the work and la- 
bour of benevolence. You must go to the poor 
man's bed. You must lend your hand to the work 
of assistance. You must examine his accounts. 
You must try to recover those debts which are due 
to his family. You must try to recover those 



23 

wages which are detained by the injuries or the ra- 
pacity of his master. You must employ your me- 
diation with his superiors. You must represent to 
them the necessities of his situation. You must 
solicit their assistance, and awaken their feelings 
to the tale of his calamity. This is benevolence in 
its plain, and sober, and substantial reality, though 
eloquence may have withheld its imagery, and 
poetry may have denied its graces and its embel- 
lishments. This is true and unsophisticated good- 
ness. It may be recorded in no earthly documents ; 
but if done under the influence of Christian princi- 
ple — in a word, done unto Jesus, it is written in 
the book of heaven, and will give a new lustre to 
that crown to which his disciples look forward in 
time, and will wear through eternity. 

You have all heard of the division of labour, and I 
wish you to understand, that the advantage of this 
principle may be felt as much in the operations of 
charity, as in the operations of trade and manu- 
factures. The work of beneficence does not lie in 
the one act of giving money ; there must be the 
act of attendance ; there must be the act of inqui- 
ry ; there must be the act of judicious application. 
But I can conceive that an individual may be so 
deficient in the varied experience and attention 
which a work so extensive demands, that he may 
retire in disgust and discouragement from the prac- 
tice of charity altogether. The institution of a So- 
ciety, such as this, saves this individual to the cause. 
It takes upon itself all the subsequent acts in the 



work and labour of love, and restricts his part to 
the mere act of giving money. It fills the middle 
space between the dispensers and the recipients of 
chanty. The habits of many who now hear me, 
may disqualify them for the work of examination. 
They may have no time for it; they may live at a 
distance from the objects ; they may neither know 
how 7 to introduce, nor how to conduct themselves 
in the management of all the details ; their w 7 ant of 
practice and of experience may disable them for 
the work of repelling imposition ; they should try 
to gain the necessary habits ; it is right that every 
individual among us, should each, in his own 
sphere, consider the poor, and qualify themselves 
for a judicious and discriminating charity. But, 
in the mean time, the Society for the Relief of the 
Destitute Sick, is an instrument ready made to our 
hands. Avail yourselves of this instrument imme- 
diately, as, by the easiest part of the exercise of 
charity, which is to give money, you carry home to 
the poor all the benefits of its most difficult exer- 
cises. The experience which you want, the mem- 
bers of this laudable Society are in possession of. 
By the work and observation of years, a stock of 
practical wisdom is now accumulated among them, 
They have been long inured to all that is loath- 
some and discouraging in this good work, and 
they have nerve, and hardihood, and principle to 
front it. They are every way qualified to be the 
carriers of your bounty, for it is a path they have 
long travelled in. Give the money, and these con- 



25 



scientious men will soon bring it into contact with 
the right objects. They know the way through all 
the obscurities of this metropolis, and they can 
bring the offerings of your charity to people whom 
you will never see, and into houses which you will 
never enter, it is not easy to conceive, far less to 
compute the extent of human misery; but these 
men can give you experience for it. They can 
show you their registers of the sick and of the dy- 
ing ; they are familiar with disease in all its varie- 
ties of faintness, and breathlessness, and pain. — 
Sad union ! they are called to witness it in conjunc- 
tion with poverty ; and well do they know that there 
is an eloquence in the imploring looks of these 
helpless poor, which no description can set before 
you. Oh ! my brethren, figure to yourselves the 
calamity in all its soreness, and measure your 
bounty by the actual greatness of the claims, and 
not by the feebleness of their advocate. 

I have trespassed upon your patience ; but, at the 
hazard of carrying my address to a length that is 
unusual, I must still say more. Nor would I ever 
forgive myself if I neglected to set the eternity of 
the poor in all its importance before you. This is 
the second point of consideration to which I wish 
to direct you. The man who considers the poor 
will give his chief anxiety to the wants of their 
eternity. It must be evident to all of you that this 
anxiety is little felt. I do not appeal for the evi- 
dence of this to the selfish part of mankind- — there 
we are not to expect it. I go to those who are 

4 



26 



really benevolent—who have a wish to make others 
happy, and who take trouble in so doing; and it is 
a striking observation, how little the salvation of 
these others is the object of that benevolence which 
makes them so amiable. It will be found that in 
and by far the greater number of instances, this 
principle is all consumed or} the accommodations 
of time, and the necessities of the body. It is the 
meat which feeds them — the garment which co- 
vers them — the house* which shelters them — the 
money which purchases all things ; these, I say ? 
are what form the chief topics of benevolent 
anxiety. Now, we do not mean to discourage 
this principle. We cannot afford it ; there is too 
little of it ; and it forms too refreshing an exception 
to that general selfishness which runs throughout 
the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say 
any thing against it. We are not cold-blooded 
enough to refuse our delighted concurrence to an 
exertion so amiable in its principle, and so pleas- 
ing in the warm and comfortable spectacle which 
it lays before us. The poor, it is true, ought never 
to forget, that it is to their own industry, and to 
the wisdom and economy of their own manage- 
ment, that they are to look for the elements of 
subsistence— that if idleness and prodigality shall 
lay hold of the mass of our population, no bene- 
volence, however unbounded, can ever repair a 
mischief so irrecoverable — that if they will not la- 
bour for themselves, it is not in the power of the 
rich to create a sufficiency for them ; and that 



27 



though every heart were opened, and every purse 
emptied in the cause, it would absolutely go for 
nothing towards forming a well-fed, a well-lodged, 
or a well-conditioned peasantry. Still, however, 
there are cases which no foresight could prevent, 
and no industry could provide for— where the blow 
falls heavy and unexpected on some devoted son 
or daughter of misfortune, and where, though 
thoughtlessness and folly may have had their share, 
benevolence, not very nice in its calculations, will 
feel the overpowering claim of actual, helpless, and 
imploring misery. Now, I again offer my cheer- 
ful testimony to such benevolence as this ; I count 
it delightful to see it singling out its object, and 
sustaining it against the cruel pressure of age and 
of indigence ; and when I enter a cottage where I 
see a warmer fire-side, or more substantial provi- 
sion, than the visible means can account for, I say 
that the landscape, in all its summer glories, does 
not offer an object so gratifying, as when referred 
to the vicinity of the great man's house, and the 
people who live in it, and am told that I will find 
my explanation there. Kind and amiable people ! 
your benevolence is most lovely in its display, but 
Oh ! it is perishable in its consequences. Does it 
never occur to you, that in a few years this favo- 
rite will die — that he will go to the place where 
neither cold nor hunger will reach him, but that a 
mighty interest remains, of which both of us may 
know the certainty, though neither you nor 1 can 
calculate the extent. Your benevolence is too 



28 



sbort— it does not shoot far enough a-head— -itis like 
regaling a child with a sweetmeat or a toy, and 
then abandoning the happy unreflecting infant to 
exposure. You make the poor old man happy 
with your crumbs and your fragments, but he is 
an infant on the mighty range of infinite duration ; 
and will you leave the soul, which has this infini- 
ty to go through, to its chance ? How comes it 
that the grave should throw so impenetrable a 
shroud over the realities of eternity ? How comes 
it that heaven, and hell, and judgment, should be 
treated as so many nonentities, and that there 
should be as little real and operative sympathy felt 
for the soul, which lives for ever, as for the body- 
after it is dead, or for the dust into which it moul- 
ders ? Eternity is longer than time ; the arithme- 
tic, my brethren, is all on one side upon this ques- 
tion ; and the wisdom which calculates, and guides 
itself by calculation, gives its weighty and respect- 
able support to what may be called the benevo- 
lence of faith. 

Now, if there be one employment more fitted 
than another to awaken this benevolence, it is the 
peculiar employment of that Society for which I 
am now pleading. I would have anticipated such 
benevolence from the situation they occupy, and 
the information before the public bears testimony 
to the fact. The truth is, that the diseases of the 
body may be looked upon as so many outlets 
through which the soul finds its way to eternity. 
Now, it is at these outlets that the members of thjs 



29 



Society have stationed themselves. This is the in- 
teresting point of survey at which they stand, and 
from which they command a look of both worlds. 
They have placed themselves in the avenues which 
lead from time to eternity, and they have often to 
witness the awful transition of a soul hovering at 
the entrance — struggling its way through the valley 
of the shadow of death, and at last breaking loose 
from the confines of all that is visible. Do you think 
it likely that men, with such spectacles before 
them, will withstand the sense of eternity ? No, my 
brethren, they cannot, they have not. Eternity, I 
rejoice to announce to you, is not forgotten by them ; 
and with their care for the diseases of the body, 
they are neither blind nor indifferent to the fact, 
that the soul is diseased also. We know it well. 
There is an indolent and superficial theology, which 
turns its eyes from the danger, and feels no pressing 
call for the application of the remedy — which re- 
poses more in its own vague and self-assumed con- 
ceptions of the mercy of God, than in the firm and 
consistent representations of the New Testament — 
which overlooks the existence of the disease alto- 
gether, and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no 
urgency in the business — which, in the face of all 
the truths and all the severities that are uttered in 
the word of God, leaves the soul to its chance ; or, 
in other w r ords, by neglecting to administer every 
thing specific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it 
to perish. We do not want to involve you in con- 
troversies; we only ask you to open the New Tes- 



30 



lament, and attend to the obvious meaning of a 
word which occurs frequently in its pages — we 
mean the word saved. The term surely implies, 
that the present state of the thing to be saved, is a 
lost and an undone state. If a tree be in a healthful 
state from its infancy, you never apply the term 
saved to it, though you see its beautiful foliage, its 
flourishing blossoms, its abundant produce, and its 
progressive ascent through all the varieties incident- 
al to a sound and a prosperous tree. But if it were 
diseased in its infancy, and ready to perish, and if 
it were restored by management and artificial ap- 
plications, then you would say of this tree that it 
was saved; and the very term implies some previ- 
ous state of uselessness and corruption. What, then r 
are we to make of the frequent occurrence of this 
term in the New Testament, as applied to a human 
being ? If men come into this world pure and inno- 
cent, and have nothing more to do but to put forth 
the powers with which nature has endowed them, 
and so rise through the progressive stages of virtue 
and excellence, to the rewards of immortality, you 
would not say of these men that they were saved 
when they were translated to these rewards. These 
rewards of man are the natural effects of his obe- 
dience, and the term saved is not at ail applicable 
to such a supposition. But the God of the Bible says 
differently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it is by 
being saved. He is in a diseased state, and it is by 
the healing application of the blood of the Son of 
God, that he is restored from that state. The very 



31 



title applied to him proves the same thing. He is 
called our Saviour. The deliverance which he 
effects is called our salvation. The men whom he 
doth deliver are called the saved. Doth not this im- 
ply some previous state of disease and helplessness? 
And from the frequent and incidental occurrence of 
this term, may we not gather an additional testi- 
mony to the truth of what is elsewhere more ex- 
pressly revealed to us, that w r e are lost by nature, 
and that to obtain recovery, we must be found in 
Him who came to seek and to save that which is 
lost. He that believeth on the Son of God shall be 
saved, but he that believeiri not, the wrath of God 
abideth on him. 

We know that there are some who loathe this 
representation ; but this is just another example of 
the substantial interests of the poor being sacrificed 
to mismanagement and delusion. It is to be hoped 
that there are many who have looked the disease 
fairly in the face, and are ready to reach forward 
the remedy adapted to relieve it. We should have 
no call to attend to the spiritual interests of men, if 
they could safely be left to themselves, and to the 
spontaneous operation of those powers with which 
it is supposed that nature has endowed them. But 
this is not the state of the case. We come into the 
world with the principles of sin and condemnation 
within us ; and, in the congenial atmosphere of this 
world's example, these ripen fast for the execution 
of the sentence. During the period of this short but 
interesting passage to another world 5 the remedy is 



3-2 



in the gospel held out to all, and the freedom and 
universality of its invitations, while it opens assur- 
ed admission to all who will, must aggravate the 
weight and severity of the sentence to those who 
will not ; and upon them the dreadful energy of 
that saying will be accomplished, — " How shall 
they escape if they neglect so great a salvation ?" 

We know part of your labours for the eternity 
of the poor. We know that you have brought the 
Bible into contact with many a soul. And we are 
sure that this is suiting the remedy to the disease ; 
for the Bible contains those words which are the 
power of God through faith unto salvation, to every 
one who believes them. 

To this established instrument for working faith 
in the heart, add the instrument of hearing. When 
you give the Bible, accompany the gift with the 
living energy of a human voice — let prayer, and 
advice, and explanation, be brought to act upon 
them ; and let the warm and deeply felt earnest- 
ness of your hearts, discharge itself upon theirs in 
the impressive tones of sincerity, and friendship, 
and good will. This is going substantially to work. 
It is, if I may use the expression, bringing the right 
element to bear upon the case before you ; and be 
assured, every treatment of a convinced and guil- 
ty mind is superficial and ruinous, which does not 
lead it to the Saviour, and bring before it his sacri- 
fice and atonement, and the influences of that spi- 
rit bestowed through his obedience on all who be- 
lieve on Him. 



33 



While in the full vigour of health, we may count 
It enough to take up with something short of this. 
But — striking testimony to evangelical truth ! go 
to the awful reality of a human soul on the eve of 
its departure from the body, and you will find that 
all those vapid sentimentalities which partake not 
of the substantial doctrine of the New Testament, 
are good for nothing. Hold up your face, my breth- 
ren, for the truth and simplicity of the Bible. Be 
not ashamed of its phraseology. It is the right in- 
strument to handle in the great work of calling a 
human soul out of darkness into marvellous light. 
Stand firm and secure on the impregnable princi- 
ple, that this is the word of God, and that all taste, 
and imagination, and science, must give way be- 
fore its overbearing authority. Walk in the foot- 
steps of your Saviour, in the twofold office of caring 
for the diseases of the body, and administering to 
the wants of the soul ; and though you may fail in 
the former — though the patient may never arise 
and walk, yet, by the blessing of heaven upon your 
fervent and effectual endeavours, the latter object 
may be gained — the soul may be lightened of all its 
anxieties — the whole burden of its diseases may 
be swept away — it may be of good cheer, because 
its sins are forgiven — and the right direction may 
be impressed upon it which will carry it forward 
in progress to a happy eternity. Death may not be 
averted, but death may be disarmed. It may be 
stript of its terrors, and instead of a devouring ene- 
my, it may be hailed as a messenger of triumph. 

5 



THOUGHTS OJV UNIVERSAL PEACE: 
A 

SERMON, 

DELIVERED ON 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1816, 

THE DAY OF NATIONAL THANKS GIVING 

FOR THE RESTORATION OF PEACE. 



BY THE 

HEV. THOMAS CHALMERS, 

^Minister of the Tron Church, Glasg-ovi . 



NEW-YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCEIN. 
1817. 



THOUGHTS O.V UNIVERSAL PEACE: 



A 

SERMON. 

ISAIAH, II. 4. 

w Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more." 

THERE are a great many passages in Scripture 
which warrant the expectation that a time is com- 
ing, when vvar shall be put an end to — when its 
abominations and its cruelties shall be banished 
from the face of the earth — when those restless 
elements of ambition and jealousy which have so 
long kept the species in a state of unceasing com- 
motion, and are ever and anon sending another and 
another wave over the field of this world's politics, 
shall at length be hushed into a placid and ever- 
during calm; and many and delightful are the 
images which the Bible employs, as guided by the 
light of prophecy, it carries us forward to those 
millennial days, when the reign of peace shall be 
established, and the wide charity of the gospel, 
which is confined by no limits, and owns no dis- 
tinctions, shall embosom the whole human race 



38 



within the ample grasp of one harmonious and 
universal family. 

But before 1 proceed, let me attempt to do away 
a delusion which exists on the subject of prophe- 
cy. Its fulfilments are all certain, say many, and 
we have therefore nothing to do, but to wait for 
them in passive and indolent expectation. The 
truth of God stands in no dependance on human 
aid to vindicate the immutability of all his an- 
nouncements ; and the power of God stands in no 
need of the feeble exertions of man to hasten the 
accomplishment of any of his purposes. Let us 
therefore sit down quietly in the attitude of spec- 
tators — let us leave the Divinity to do his own work 
in his own way, and mark, by the progress of a 
history over which we have no control, the evo- 
lution of his designs, and the march of his wise and 
beneficent administration. 

Now, it is very true, that the Divinity will do his 
own work in his own way, but if he choose to tell 
us that that way is not without the instrumentality 
of men, but by their instrumentality, might not 
this sitting down into the mere attitude of specta- 
tators, turn out to be a most perverse and disobe- 
dient conclusion ? It is true, that his purpose will 
obtain its fulfilment, whether we shall offer or not 
to help it forward by our co-operation. But if the 
object is to be brought about, and if, in virtue of the 
same sovereignty by which he determined upon 
the object, he has also determined on the way 
which leads to it, and that that way shall be by 



m 

the acting of human principle, and the putting 
forth of human exertion, then let us keep back our 
co-operation as we may, God will raise up the 
hearts of others to that which we abstain from ; and 
they, admitted into the high honour of being fellow- 
workers with God, may do homage to the truth 
of his prophecy, while we, perhaps, may uncon- 
sciously do dreadful homage to the truth of another 
warning, and another prophecy. " I work a work 
in your days which you shall not believe, though 
a man declare it unto you. Behold, ye despisers, 
and wonder and perish." 

Now 7 this is the very way in which prophecies 
have been actually fulfilled. The return of the peo- 
ple of Israel to their own land was an event pre- 
dicted by inspiration, and was brought about by 
the stirring up of the spirit of Cyrus, who felt him- 
self charged with the duty of building a house to 
God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of the Spi- 
rit on the day of Pentecost was foretold by the Sa- 
viour ere he left the world, and was accomplished 
■upon men who assembled themselves together at 
the place to which they were commanded to re- 
pair ; and there they waited, and they prayed. The 
rapid propagation of Christianity in those days 
was known by the human agents of this propaga- 
tion, to be made sure by the word of prophecy ; 
but the way in which it was actually made sure, 
was by the strenuous exertions, the unexampled 
heroism, the holy devotedness and zeal of martyrs, 
and apostles, and evangelists. And even now, my 



40 



brethren, while no professing Christian can deny 
that their faith is to be one day the faith of all 
countries ; but while many of them idly sit and wait 
the time of God putting forth some mysterious and 
unheard of agency, to bring about the universal 
diffusion, there are men who have betaken them- 
selves to the obvious expedient of going abroad 
among the nations, and teaching them ; and though 
derided by an undeserving world, they seem to be 
the very men pointed out by the Bible, who are go- 
ing to and fro increasing the knowledge of its doc- 
trines, and who will be the honoured instruments 
of carrying into effect the most splendid of all its 
anticipations. 

Now, the same holds true, I apprehend, of the 
prophecy in my text. The abolition of war will 
be the effect not of any sudden or resistless visita- 
tion from heaven on the character of men- — not of 
any mystical influence working with all the omni- 
potence of a charm on the passive hearts of those 
who are the subjects of it — not of any blind or over- 
ruling fatality which will come upon the earth at 
some distant period of its history, and about 
which, we, of the present day, have nothing to do 
but to look silently on, without concern, and with- 
out co-operation. The prophecy of a peace as 
universal as the spread of the human race, and as 
enduring as the moon in the firmament, will meet 
its accomplishment, ay, and at that very time 
which is already fixed by Him w ho seeth the end 
of all things from the beginning thereof. But it will 



41 

be brought about by the activity of men. Tt will 
be clone by the philanthropy of thinking and intel- 
ligent Christians. The conversion of the Jews — 
the spread of gospel light among the regions of 
idolatry — these are distinct subjects of prophecy, 
on which the faithful of the land are now acting, 
and to the fulfillment of which they are giving 
their zeal and their energy. I conceive the pro- 
phecy which relates to the final abolition of war 
will be taken up in the same manner, and the 
subject will be brought to the test of Christian 
principle, and many will unite to spread a grow- 
ing sense of its follies and its enormities, over the 
countries of the world — and the public will be en- 
lightened not by the factious and turbulent decla- 
mations of a party, but by the mild dissemination 
of gospel sentiment through the land — and the pro- 
phecy contained in this book will pass into effect 
and accomplishment, by no other influence than 
the influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts 
and consciences of individuals — and the measure 
will first be carried in one country, not by the un- 
hallowed violence of discontent, but by the con- 
trol of general opinion, expressed on the part of a 
people, who, if Christian, in their repugnance to 
war will be equally Christian in all the loyalties 
and subjections, and meek unresisting virtues of the 
New Testament — and the sacred fire of good-will 
to the children of men]; will spread itself through 
all climes, and through all latitudes — and thus by 
scriptural truth conveyed with power from oncpeo- 

6 

L 



42 



pie to another, and taking its ample round among 
all the tribes and families of the earth, shall we ar- 
rive at the magnificent result of peace throughout 
all its provinces, and security in all its dwelling- 
places. 

In the further prosecution of this discourse, I 
shall, first, expatiate a little on the evils of war. 

In the second place, I shall direct your attention 
to the obstacles which stand in the way of its ex- 
tinction, and which threaten to retard for a time 
the accomplishment of the prophecy I have now 
selected for your consideration. 

And, in the Third place, I shall endeavour to 
point out, what can only be done at present in a hur- 
ried and superficial manner, some of the expedi- 
ents by which these obstacles may be done away. 

1. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of war. 
The mere existence of the prophecy in my text, 
is a sentence of condemnation upon war, and 
stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So 
soon as Christianity shall gain a full ascendancy in 
the world, from that moment war is to disappear. 
We have heard that there is something noble in the 
art of war ; that there is something generous in 
the ardour of that fine chivalric spirit which kin- 
dles in the hour of alarm, and rushes with delight 
among the thickest scenes of danger and of en- 



43 



terprise ;— that man is never more proudly arrayed, 
than when, elevated by a contempt for death, he 
puts on his intrepid front, and looks serene, while 
the arrows of destruction are flying on every side 
of him ; — that expunge war, and you expunge 
some of the brightest names in the catalogue of 
human virtue, and demolish that theatre on which 
have been displayed some of the sublimest ener- 
gies of the human character* It is thus that war 
has been invested with a most pernicious splen- 
dour, and men have offered to justify it as a bless- 
ing and an ornament to society, and attempts have 
been made to throw a kind of imposing morality 
around it; and one might almost be reconciled to 
the whole train of its calamities and its horrors, did 
he not believe his Bible, and learn from its infor- 
mation, that in the days of perfect righteousness, 
there will be no war ; — that so soon as the character 
of man has had the last finish of Christian princi- 
ple thrown over it, from that moment all the in- 
struments of war will be thrown aside, and all its 
lessons will be forgotten; that therefore what are 
called the virtues of war, are no virtues at all, or 
that a better and a worthier scene will be provided 
for their exercise ; but in short, that at the com- 
mencement of that blissful era, when the reign, 
. of heaven shall be established, war will take its 
departure from the world with all the other plagues 
and atrocities of the species. 

But apart altogether from this testimony to the 
evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, and 



44 



see whether we can find its character engraved on 
the aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive ob- 
server. The stoutest heart of this assembly would 
recoil, were he who owns it, to behold the de- 
struction of a single individual by some deed of 
violence. Were the man who at this moment stands 
before you in the full play and energy of health, to 
be in another moment laid by some deadly aim a 
lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you 
who would not prove how strong are the relentings 
of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There 
are some of you who would be haunted for whole 
days by the image of horror you had witnessed — 
who would feel the weight of a most oppressive 
sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time 
could wear away — who would be so pursued by it 
as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment — who 
would think of it through the day, and it would 
spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking 
moments— who would dream of it at night, and it 
would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat 
from the torments of an ever-meddling memory, 
into a scene of restlessness. 

But generally the death of violence is not instan- 
taneous, and there is often a sad and dreary inter- 
val between its final consummation, and the inflic- 
tion of the blow which causes it. The winged mes- 
senger of destruction has not found its direct 
avenue to that spot, where the principle of life is 
situated — and the soul, finding obstacles to its im- 
mediate egress, has to struggle it for hours, ere it 



45 



can make its weary way through the winding 
avenues of that tenement, which has been torn 
open by a brother's hand. O ! my brethren, if there 
be something appalling in the suddenness of death, 
think not that when gradual in its advances, you 
will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contem- 
plation, by viewing it in a milder form. O ! tell 
me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bo- 
som, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies 
of the dying man — -as goaded by pain, he grasps 
the cold ground in convulsive energy, or faint with 
the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gath- 
ering paleness spreads itself over his countenance 
— or wrapping himself round in despair, he can 
only mark by a few feeble quiverings, that life still 
lurks and lingers in his lacerated body — or lifting 
up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring 
helplessness, for that succour which no sympathy 
can yield him. It may be painful to dwell on such 
a representation — but this is the way in w T hich the 
cause of humanity is served. The eye of the sen- 
timentalist turns away from its sufferings, and he 
passes by on the other side, lest he hear that plead- 
ing voice, which is armed with a tone of remon- 
strance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot 
bear thus to pause, in imagination, on the distress- 
ing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten 
thousand times — say, how much of all this distress 
has been heaped together upon a single field — 
give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretch- 
edness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy 



46 



of an official computation — and strange to tell, not 
one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager 
listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every 
syllable of utterance, which is read to them out of 
the registers of death. O ! say, what mystic spell is 
that, which so blinds us to the sufferings of our 
brethren — which deafens to our ear the voice of 
bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the 
shriek of dying thousands — which makes the very 
magnitude of the slaughter, throw a softening dis- 
guise over its cruelties, and its horrors — which 
causes us to eye with indifference, the field that is 
crowded with the most revolting abominations, and 
arrests that* sigh, which each individual would 
singly have drawn from us, by the report of the 
many who have fallen, and breathed their last in 
agony, along with him. 

I am not saying that the burden of all this cri- 
minality rests upon the head of the immediate 
combatants. It lies somewhere, but who can deny 
that a soldier may be a Christian, and that from the 
bloody field on which his body is laid, his soul may 
wing its ascending way to the shores of a peaceful 
eternity. But when I think that the Christians, even 
of the great world, form but a very little flock, and 
that an army is not a propitious soil for the growth 
of Christian principle — when I think on the cha- 
racter of one such army, that had been led on for 
years by a ruffian ambition— and been inured to 
scenes of barbarity — and had gathered a most fe- 
rocious hardihood of soul ? from the many enter- 



47 



prises of violence to which an unprincipled com- 
mander had carried them — when I follow them to 
the field of battle, and further think, that on both 
sides of an exasperated contest — the gentleness of 
Christianity can have no place in almost any bo- 
som ; but that nearly every heart is lighted up with 
fury, and breathes a vindictive purpose against a 
brother of the species, I cannot but reckon it among 
the most fearful of the calamities of war — that while 
the work of death is thickening along its ranks, so 
many disembodied spirits should pass into the pre- 
sence of Him who sitteth upon the throne, in such 
a posture, and with such a preparation. 

I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for 
expatiating on a topic so melancholy, nor can I af- 
ford at present, to set before you a vivid picture of 
the other miseries which war carries in its train — 
how it desolates every country through which it 
rolls, and spreads violation and alarm among its 
villages — how, at its approach, every home pours 
forth its trembling fugitives — how all the rights of 
property, and all the provisions of justice must give 
way before its devouring exactions — how, when 
Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm comes along 
with it — and for the sound of the church bell, 
which wont to spread its music over some fine 
landscape of nature, and summon rustic worship- 
pers to the house of prayer — nothing is heard but 
the deathful vollies of the battle, and the madden- 
ing outcry of infuriated men — how, as the fruit of 
victory, an unprincipled licentiousness, which no 



48 



discipline can restrain, is suffered to walk at large 
among the people — and all that is pure, and rever- 
end, and holy, in the virtue of families, is cruelly 
trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. 
Oh ! my brethren, were we to pursue those details, 
which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle per- 
petuates, we should be tempted to ask, what that is 
which civilization has done for the character of the 
species ? It has thrown a few paltry embellish- 
ments over the surface of human affairs, and for 
the order of society, it has reared the defences of 
law around the rights and the property of the 
individuals who compose it. But let war, le- 
galised as you may, and ushered into the field with 
all the parade of forms and manifestoes — let this 
war only have its season, and be suffered to over- 
leap these artificial defences, and you will soon see 
how much of the security of the commonwealth is 
due to positive restrictions, and how little of it is 
due to a natural sense of justice among men. I 
know 7 well, that the plausibilities of human charac- 
ter, which abound in every modern and enlighten- 
ed society, have been mustered up to oppose the 
doctrine of the Bible, on the woful depravity of 
our race. But out of the history of war, I can ga- 
ther for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. 
It tells me, that man when left to himself and let 
loose among his fellows, to walk after the counsel 
of his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
will soon discover how thin that tinsel is, which 
the boasted hand of civilization has thrown over 



49 



him. And we have only to blow the trumpet of 
war, and proclaim to man the hour of his opportu- 
nity, that his character may show itself in its essen- 
tial elements — and that we may see how many, in 
this our moral and enlightened day, would spring 
forward, as to a jubilee of delight, and prowl like the 
wild men of the woods, amidst scenes of rapacity, 
and cruelty, and violence. 

II. But let me hasten away from this part of the 
subject, and in the second place, direct your at- 
tention to those obstacles which stand in the. way 
of the extinction of war, and which threaten to 
retard, for a time, the accomplishment of the pro- 
phecy I have now selected for your consideration. 

Is this the time, it may be asked, to complain 
©f obstacles to the extinction of war, when peace 
has been given to the nations, and we are assem- 
bled to celebrate its triumphs ? Is this day of high 
and solemn gratulation, to be turned to such fore- 
bodings as these ? The whole of Europe is now 
at rest from the tempest which convulsed it — and 
a solemn treaty with all its adjustments, and all 
its guarantees, promises a firm perpetuity to the 
repose of the world. We have long fought for a 
happier order of things, and at length we have 
established it — and the hard-earned bequest, we 
hand down to posterity as a rich inheritance, won 
by the labours and the sufferings of the present 
generation. That gigantic ambition which stalked 
in triumph over the firmest and the oldest of our 
monarchies, is now laid — and can never again 

7 



50 

burst forth from the confinement of its prison-hold 
to waken a new uproar, and to send forth new 
troubles over the face of a desolated world. 

Now. in reply to this, let it be observed, that 
every interval of repose is precious — every breath- 
ing time from the work of violence is to be rejoiced 
in by the friends of humanity — every agreement 
among the powers of the earthy by which a tem- 
porary respite can be gotten from the calamities of 
war, is so rrruch reclaimed from the amount of 
those miseries that afflict the world, and of those 
crimes, the cry of which ascendeth unto heaven ? 
and bringeth down the judgments of God on this 
dark and rebellious province of his creation. I 
trust, thai on this day, gratitude to Him who alone 
can still the tumults of the people, will be the sen- 
timent of every heart — and f trust that none who 
now hear me, will refuse to evince his gratitude to 
the Author of the New Testament, by their obedi- 
ence to one of the most distinct and undoubted 
of its lessons — I mean the lesson of a reverential 
and submissive loyalty. I cannot pass an impar- 
tial eye over this record of God's will, without 
perceiving the utter repugnance that there is be- 
tween the spirit of Christianity, and the factious^ 
turbulent, unquenchable, and ever-meddling spi- 
rit of political disaffection. I will not compromise 
by the surrender of a si ngle jot or tittle the integrity 
of that preceptive code which my Saviour hath 
left behind him for the obedience of his disciples* 
I will not detach the very minutest of it features, 



51 



from (lie fine picture of morality that Christ hath 
loeqeathed, both by commandment and example, 
to adorn the nature he condescended to wear-*- 
and sure I am that the man who has drunk in the 
entire spirit of the gospel — who, reposing himself 
on the faith of its promised immortality, can main- 
tain an elevated calm amid all the fluctuations of 
this world's interest — whose exclusive ambition it 
Is to be the unexcepted pupil of pure, and spiritual 
and self-denying Christianity — sure I am that such 
a man will honour the king and all who are in au^- 
thority — and be subject unto them for the sake of 
conscience — and render unto them all their dues 
i — and not withhold a single fraction of the tribute 
they impose upon him — and be the best of subjects^ 
just because he is the best of Christians — resisting 
none of the ordinances of God, and living a quiet 
and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 

But it gives me pleasure to advance a further 
testimony in behalf of that government with which 
it has pleased God, who appointed* to all men the 
bounds of their habitation, to bless that portion of 
the globe that we occupy. 1 countk such a govern- 
ment that 1 not only owe it the loyalty of my prin- 
ciples — but 1 also owe it the loyalty of my affec- 
tions. I could not lightly part with my devotion 
to that government which the other year opened 
the door to the Christianization of India — 1 shall 
never withhold the tribute of my reverence from 
that government which put an end to the atrocities 



52 



of the Slave Trade— I shall never forget the tri- 
umph which in that proudest day of Britain's glo- 
ry, the cause of humanity gained within the walls 
of our enlightened Parliament. Let my right 
hand forget her cunning, ere I forget that country 
of my birth, where, in defiance to all the clamours 
of mercantile alarm, every calculation of interest 
was given to the wind, and braving every hazard, 
she nobly resolved to shake off the whole burden 
of the infamy which lay upon her. I shall never 
forget, that how to complete the object in behalf of 
which she has so honourably led the way, she 
has walked the whole round of civilized society, 
and knocked at the door of every government in 
Europe, and lifted her imploring voice for injured 
Africa, and pled with the mightiest monarchs of 
the world, the cause of her outraged shores, and 
her distracted families. I can neither shut my 
heart nor my eyes to the fact, that at this moment 
she is stretching forth the protection of her naval 
arm, and shielding, to the uttermost of her vi- 
gour, that coast where an inhuman avarice is still 
plying its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate 
among an unoffending people, a trade of cruelty, 
with all the horrid train of its terrors and abomina- 
tions. Were such a government as this to be 
Bwept from its base, either by the violence of fo- 
reign hostility, or by the hands of her own misled 
and infatuated children — I should never cease to 
deplore it as the deadliest interruption which ever 



53 



had been given to the interests of human virtue, 
and to the march of human improvement. O ! 
how it should swell every heart, not with pride, 
but with gratitude, to think that the land of our 
fathers, with all the iniquities which abound in 
it, with all the profligacy which spreads along our 
streets, and all the profaneness that is heard among 
our companies — to think that this our land, over- 
spread as it is with the appalling characters of guilt, 
is still the securest asylum of worth and of liberty — 
that this is the land from which the most copious 
emanations of Christianity are going forth to all 
the quarters of the world — that this is the land 
which teems from one end to the other of it with 
the most splendid designs and enterprizes for the 
good of the species — that this is the land where 
public principle is most felt, and public objects 
are most prosecuted, and the fine impulse of a 
public spirit is most ready to carry its generpus 
people beyond the limits of a selfish and contract- 
ed patriotism. Yes, and when the heart of the 
philanthropist is sinking within him at the gloomy 
spectacle of those crimes and atrocities which still 
deform the history of man, 1 know not a single 
earthly expedient more fitted to brighten and sus- 
tain him, than to turn his eye to the country in 
which he lives — and there see the most enlightened 
government in the world acting as the organ of 
its most moral and intelligent population. 

It is not against the government of my country, 
therefore, that I direct my observations — but 



54 



against that nature of man in the infirmities of which 
we all share, and the evil of which no government 
can extinguish. We have carried a new political 
arrangement, and we experience the result of it, a 
temporary calm — but we have not yet carried our 
way to the citadel of human passions. The ele- 
ments of war are hushed for a season — but these 
elements are not destroyed. They still rankle in 
many an unsubdued heart — and I am too well 
taught by the history of the past, and the experi- 
ence of its restless variations, not to belieVe that 
they will burst forth again in thunder over the face 
of society. No, my brethren, it will only be when 
diffused and vital Christianity comes upon the earth, 
that an enduring peace will come along wifh it. 
The prophecy of my text will obtain its fulfilment — • 
but not till the fulfilment of the verses which go 
before it ; — not till the influence of the gospel has 
found its way to the human bosom, and plucked 
out of it the elementary principles of war ; — not till 
the law of love shall spread its melting and all-sub- 
duing efficacy, among the children of one common 
nature ; — not till ambition be dethroned from its 
mastery over the affections of the inner man; — 
not till the guilty splendours of war shall cease to 
captivate its admirers, and spread the blaze of a 
deceitful heroism over the wholesale butchery of 
the species ; — not till national pride be humbled, 
and man shall learn, that if it be individually the 
duty of each of us in honour to prefer one another ; 
then let these individuals combine as they may, 



55 



and form societies as numerous and extensive as 
they may, and each of these be swelled out to the 
dimensions of an empire, still, that mutual conde- 
scension and forbearance remain the unalterable 
Christian duties of these empires to each other; — 
not till man learn to revere his brother as man, 
whatever portion of the globe he occupies, and all 
the jealousies and preferences of a contracted pa- 
triotism be given to the wind; — not till war shall 
cease to be prosecuted as a trade, and the charm 
of all that interest which is linked with its continu- 
ance, shall cease to beguile men in the peaceful 
walks of merchandise, into a barbarous longing 
after war ; — not, in one word, till pride, and jea- 
lousy, and interest, and all that isopposite to the law 
of God and the charity of the gospel, shall be for 
ever eradicated from the character of those who 
possess an effectual control over the public and po- 
litical movements of the species; — not till all this 
be brought about, and there is not another agent in 
the whole compass of nature that can bring it about 
but the gospel of Christ, carried home by the all- 
subduing power of the Spirit to the consciences of 
men ; — then, and not till then, my brethren, will 
peace come to take up its perennial abode with us ? 
and its blessed advent on earth be hailed by one 
shout of joyful acclamation throughout all its fa- 
milies; — then, and not till then, will the sacred 
principle of good-will to men circulate as free as 
the air of heaven among all countries — and the sun 
looking out from the firmament, will behold one 



56 



fine aspect of harmony throughout the wide extent 
of a regenerated world. 

It will only be in the last days, " when it shall 
come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house 
shall be established in the top of the mountains, 
and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations 
shall flow into it: And many people shall go, and 
say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain 
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and 
he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in 
his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; and he 
shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke 
many people;" then, and not till then, " they shall 
beat their swords into plough-shares, and their 
spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more." 

The above rapid sketch glances at the chief ob- 
stacles to the extinction of war, and in what re- 
mains of this discourse, I shall dwell a little more 
particularly on as many of them as my time will 
allow me, finding it impossible to exhaust so wide 
a topic, within the limits of the public services of 
one day. 

The first great obstacle then to the extinction of 
war, is the way in which the heart of man is carried 
off from its barbarities and its horrors, by the splen- 
dour of its deceitful accompaniments. There is a 
feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock 
of armies, just as there is in contemplating the de- 



57 



vouring energy of a tempest, and this so elevates and 
engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to 
the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to 
the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of 
their desolated families. There is a gracefulness 
in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for dis- 
tinction on the field, and lured by this generous as- 
piration to the deepest of the animated throng, 
where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons 
of valour struggle for a remembrance and a name ; 
and this side of the picture is so much the exclu- 
sive object of our regard, as to disguise from our 
view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the 
writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds 
more who have been laid on the cold ground, 
where they are left to languish and to die. There 
no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over 
them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the 
dying posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the 
maddening fury of the combat, have been given and 
received by the children of one common Father. 
There death spreads its pale ensigns over every 
countenance, and when night comes on, and dark- 
ness around them, how many a despairing wretch 
must take up with the bloody field as the untended 
bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear 
the message of tenderness to his distant home, 
without one companion to close his eyes. 

I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at 
work which go to spread a most delusive colouring 
over w ar, and to remove its shocking barbarities to 

8 



58 



the back ground of our contemplations altogether. 
I see it in the history which tells me of the superb 
appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their 
successive charges. I see it in the poetry which 
lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of 
blood, and transports its many admirers, as by its 
images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of 
chivalry,*it throws its treacherous embellishments 
over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the 
music which represents the progress of the battle; 
and where, after being inspired by the trumpet- 
notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tender- 
ness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the 
sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utter- 
ance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of 
the thickening contest, and the moans of the wound- 
ed men as they fade away upon the ear, and sink 
into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what 
strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were 
it not so, war could never have been seen in any 
other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; 
and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Chris- 
tian sentiment upon earth, to arrest the strong cur- 
rent of its popular and prevailing partiality for war. 
Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the 
check of severe principle, on all the subordinate 
tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will glo- 
ry be reduced to its right estimate — and the wake- 
ful benevolence of the gospel chasing away every 
spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion 
whatever, from its simple but sublime enterprizes 



59 



for the good of the species. Then the reigo of truth 
and quietness will be ushered into the world, and 
war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will be stript 
of its many and its bewildering fascinations. 

But again, another obstacle to the extinction of 
war is a sentiment which seems to be universally 
gone into, that the rules and promises of the gos- 
pel which apply to a single individual, do not ap- 
ply to a nation of individuals. Just think of the 
mighty effect it would have on the politics of the 
world, were this sentiment to be practically de- 
posed from its wonted authority over the counsels 
and the doings of nations, in their transactions 
with each other. If forbearance be the virtue of 
an individual, forbearance is also the virtue of a 
nation. If it be incumbent en men in honour to 
prefer each other, it is incumbent on the very 
largest societies of men, through the constituted 
organ of their government to do the same. If it 
be the glory of a man to defer his anger, and to 
pass over a transgression, that nation mistakes its 
glory which is so feelingly alive to the slightest 
insult, and musters up its threats and its arma- 
ments upon the faintest shadow of a provocation. 
If it be the magnanimity of an injured man to ab- 
stain from vengeance, and if by so doing, he 
heap coals of fire upon the head of his enemy, 
then that is the magnanimous nation, which, re- 
coiling from violence and from blood, will do no 
more than send its Christian embassy, and prefer 
its mild and impressive remonstrance ; and that is 



60 



the disgraced nation which will refuse the impres- 
siveness of the moral appeal that has been made 
to it. — O ! my brethren, there must be the breath- 
ing of a different spirit to circulate round the globe, 
ere its Christianized nations resign the jealousies 
which now front them to each other in the scowl- 
ing attitude of defiance — and much is to do with 
the people of every land, ere the prophesied influ- 
ence of the gospel shall bring its virtuous, and its 
pacifying control to bear with effect on the coun- 
sels and governments of the world. 

I find that I must be drawing to a close, and that 
I must forbear entering into several topics on which 
I meant at one time to expatiate. I wished, in 
particular, to have laid it fully before you how 
the extinction of war, though it should withdraw 
one of those scenes on which man earns the glory 
of intrepidity — yet it would leave other, and better, 
and nobler scenes, for the display and the exercise 
of this respectable attribute. I wished also to ex- 
plain to you, that however much I admired the ge- 
neral spirit of Quakerism, on the subject of war ; 
yet that I was not prepared to go all the length of 
its principles, when that war was strictly defensive. 
It strikes me, that war is to be abolished by the 
abolition of its aggressive spirit among the differ- 
ent nations of the world. The text seems to tell 
me that this is the order of prophecy upon the sub- 
ject — and that it is when nation shall cease to lift 
up its sword against nation — or, in other words, 
>vhen one nation shall cease to move, for the pur- 



61 



pose of attacking another, that military science 
will be no longer in demand, and that the people 
of the earth will learn the art of war no more. I 
should also have stated, that on this ground, I re- 
frained from pronouncing on the justice or necessi- 
ty of any one war in which this country has ever 
been involved. I have no doubt that many of those 
who supported our former wars, looked on several 
of them as wars for existence ; but on this matter 
I carefully abstain from the utterance of a single 
sentiment : for in so doing, I should feel myself to 
be descending from the generalities of Christian 
principle, and employing that pulpit as the vehi- 
cle of a questionable policy, which ought never to 
be prostituted either to the unworthy object Df 
sending forth the incense of human flattery to any 
one administration, or of regaling the factious, and 
turbulent, and disloyal passions of any party. I 
should next, if I had time, offer such observations 
as were suggested by my own views of political 
science, on the multitude of vulnerable points by 
which this country is surrounded, in the shape of 
numerous and distant dependencies, and which 
however much they may tend to foster the warlike 
politics of our government, are, in truth, so little 
worth the expense of a war, that should all of them 
be wrested away from us, they would leave the 
people of our empire as great, and as wealthy, and 
as competent to every purpose of home security 
as ever. Lastly, I might have whispered my in- 
clination, for a little more of the Chinese policy 



V 



62 



being imported into Europe, not for the purpose 
of restraining a liberal intercourse between its dif- 
ferent countries, but for the purpose of quieting 
in each its restless spirit of alarm, about every 
foreign movement in the politics and designs of 
other nations ; because, sure I am, that were each 
great empire of the world to lay it down as the 
iBaxim of its most scrupulous observance, not to 
neddle till it was meddled with, each would feel 
in such a maxim both its safety and its triumph ; — 
for such are the mighty resources of defensive 
var, that though the whole transportable force of 
Europe were to land upon our borders, the result 
of the experiment would be such, that it should ne- 
vzx be repeated — the rallying population of Bri- 
tain could sweep them all from the face of its ter- 
riory, and a whole myriad of invaders would melt 
away under the power of such a government as 
ours, trenched behind the loyalty of her defenders, 
and strong, as she deserves to be, in the love and 
in :he confidence of all her children. 

I would not have touched on any of the lessons 
of political economy, did they not lead me, by a 
single step, to a Christian lesson, which I count it 
my incumbent duty to press upon the attention of 
you all. Any sudden change in the state of the 
demand, must throw the commercial world into a 
temporary derangement. And whether the change 
be from war to peace, or from peace to war, this 
effect is sure to accompany it, Now for upwards 
of twenty years, the direction of our trade has 



63 



been accommodated to a war system, and when 
this system is put an end to, I do not say what 
amount of the distress will light upon this neigh- 
bourhood, but we may be sure that all the alarm 
X)f falling markets, and ruined speculation, will 
spread an impressive gloom over many of the 
manufacturing districts of the land. Now, let my 
title to address you on other grounds, be as ques- 
tionable as it may, I feel no hesitation whatever 
in announcing it, as your most imperative duty, 
that no outcry of impatience or discontent from you, 
shall embarrass the pacific policy of his majesty's 
government. They have conferred a great bless- 
ing on the country, in conferring on it peace, and 
it is your part resignedly to weather the languid or 
disastrous months which may come along with it. 
The interest of trade is an old argument that has 
been set up in resistance to the dearest and most 
substantial interests of humanity. When Paul 
wanted to bring Christianity into Ephesus, he 
raised a storm of opposition around him, from a 
quarter which, I dare say, he was not counting on. 
There happened to be some shrine manufactories 
in that place, and as the success of the Apostle 
would infallibly have reduced the demand for that 
article, forth came the decisive argument of, Sirs, 
by this craft we have our wealth, and should this 
Paul turn away the people from the worship of gods 
made with hands, thereby much damage would ac- 
crue to our trade. Why, my brethren, if this argu- 
ment is to be admitted, there is not one conceiva- 



64 



ble benefit that can be offered for the acceptance 
of the species. Would it not be well if all the 
men of reading in the country were to be diverted 
from the poison which lurks in many a mischievous 
publication — and should this blessed reformation 
be effected, are there none to be found who would 
feel that much damage had accrued to their trade ? 
Would it not be well, if those wretched sons of 
pleasure, before whom, if they repent not, there 
lieth all the dreariness of an unprovided eternity — 
would it not be well, that they were reclaimed from 
the maddening intoxication which speeds them on 
in the career of disobedience — and on this event 
too, would there be none to complain that much 
damage had accrued to their trade ? Is it not well, 
ihat the infamy of the Slave Trade has been swept 
from the page of British history ? and yet do not 
many of you remember how long the measure lay 
suspended, and that about twenty annual flotillas 
burdened with the load of human wretchedness, 
were wafted across the Atlantic, while Parliament 
was deafened and overborne by unceasing cla* 
mours about the much damage that would accrue 
to the trade ? And now, is it not w T ell that peace 
has once more been given to the nations ? and are 
you to follow up this goodly train of examples, by 
a single whisper of discontent about the much da- 
mage that will accrue to your trade? No, my 
brethren, 1 will not let down a single inch of the 
Christian requirement that lies upon you. Should 
a sweeping tide Qf bankruptcy set in upon the 



65 



land, and reduce every individual who now hears 
me, to the very humblest condition in society, God 
stands pledged to give food and raiment to all who 
depend upon him; — and it is not fair to make 
others bleed, that you may roll in affluence ; — it is 
not fair to desolate thousands of families, that 
yours may be upheld in luxury and splendour — 
and your best, and noblest, and kindest part is, to 
throw yourself on the promises of God, and he 
will hide you and your little ones in the secret of 
his pavilion till these calamities be overpast. 

III. I trust it is evident from all that has been 
said, how it is only by the extension of Christian 
principle among the people of the earth, that the 
atrocities of war wijl at length be swept away from 
it ; and that each of us is hastening the commence- 
ment of that blissful period, who, in his own sphere, 
is doing all that in him lies to bring his own heart, 
and the hearts of others, under the supreme influ- 
ence of this principle. It is public opinion, which, 
in the long run, governs the world; and while I 
look with confidence to a gradual revolution in the 
state of public opinion from the omnipotence of 
gospel truth working its silent, but effectual way, 
through the families of mankind — yet I will not 
deny, that much may be done to accelerate the ad- 
vent of perpetual and universal peace, by a dis- 
tinct body of men embarking their every talent, 
end their every acquirement in the prosecution of 

9 



66 

tfcii, as a distinct object. This was the way in 
which, a few years ago. the British public were 
gained over to the cause of Africa. This is the 
way in which some of the other prophecies of the 
Bible are at this moment hastening to their ac- 
complishment : and it is in this way. I apprehend, 
that the prophecy of my text may be indebted for 
its speedier fulfilment to the agency of men, select- 
ing this as the assigned field on which their philan- 
thropy shall expatiate. Were each individual mem- 
ber of such a scheme to prosecute his own walk - , 
and come forward with his own peculiar contribu- 
tion, the fruit of the united labours of all would be 
one of the finest collections of Christian eloquence, 
and of enlightened morals, and of sound political 
philosophy, that ever was presented to the world. 
I could not fasten on another cause more fitted to 
call forth such a variety of talent, and to rally around 
it so many of the generous and accomplished sons 
of humanity, and to give each of them a devoted- 
pess and a power far beyond whatever could be 
sent into the hearts of enthusiasts, by the mere im- 
pulse of literary ambition. 

Let one take up the question of war in its . 
principle, and make the fell weight of his moral 
severity rest upon it. and upon all its abominations. 
Let another take up the question of war in its 
consequences, and bring his every power of gra- 
phical description to the task of presenting an 
awakened public with an impressive detail of its 



67 



cruelties and its horrors. Let another neutralize 
the poetry of war, and dismantle it of all those 
bewitching splendours, which the hand of mis- 
guided genius has thrown over it. Let another 
teach the world a truer, and more magnanimous 
path to national glory, than any country of the 
world has yet w 7 alked in. Let another tell with 
irresistible argument, how the Christian ethics of 
a nation is at one with the Christian ethics of its 
humblest individual. Let another bring all the re- 
sources of his political science to unfold the vast 
energies of defensive war, and show, that instead 
of that ceaseless jealousy and disquietude which 
are ever keeping alive the flame of hostility among 
the nations, each may wait in prepared security, 
till the first footstep of an invader shall be the signal 
for mustering around the standard of its outraged 
rights, all the steel, and spirit, and patriotism of 
the country. Let another pour the light of modern 
speculation into the mysteries of trade, and prove 
that not a single war has been undertaken for any 
of its objects, where the millions and the millions 
more which were lavished on the cause, have not 
all been cheated away from us by the phantom of 
an imaginary interest. This may look to many like 
the Utopianism of a romantic anticipation — but I 
shall never despair of the cause of truth addressed 
to a Christian public, when the clear light of prin- 
ciple can be brought to every one of its positions, 
and when its practical and conclusive establish- 



63 



inent forms one of the most distinct of Heaven's 
prophecies — " that men shall beat their swords into 
ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks 
— and that nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn the art of war any 
more." 



THE DUTY OF GIVING AN IMMEDIATE DILIGENCE TO THE 
BUSINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 



BEING, AN 

, ADDRESS 

TO THE 

INHABITANTS 

OF THE 

&ftjBQ0in ©if i&aiLmjkOTo 



BY THE 

REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, 

One of the Ministers of Glasgow. 



NE IV- YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCKLW 
1817. 



TO T#E 

INHABITANTS 

OF THJS 

PARISH OF KIJLMANY. 

WHEN one writes a letter to an intimate and a 
much-loved friend, he never thinks of the graces 
of the composition. He unbosoms himself in a 
style of perfect freeness and simplicity. He giveg 
way to the kindly affections of his heart, and though 
there may be many touches of tenderness in his 
performance, it is not because he aims at touches 
6f any kind, but because all the tenderness that is 
written, is the genuine and the artless transcript of 
all the tenderness that is felt. Now conceive for a 
moment, that he wrote his letter under the con- 
sciousness that it was to be broadly exhibited be- 
fore the eye of the public, this would immediately 
operate as a heavy restraint upon him. A mar* 
would much rather pour the expression of his 
friendship into the private ear of him who was the 
object of it, than he would do it under the full stare 
of a numerous company. And I, my brethren, could 
my time have allowed it, would much rather have 
written my earnest and longing aspiration for the 
Welfare of you all by a private letter to each indi- 
vidual, than by this general Address, which nece's- 



72 



sarily exposes to the wide theatre of the public all 
that I feel, and all that 1 utter on the subject of my 
affectionate regard for you. 

It were better then for the exercise to which I 
have now set myself, that I shut out all idea of the 
public ; and never, within the whole recollection 
of my life, was I less disposed to foster that idea. 
It may be observed, that the blow of some great and 
calamitous visitation brings a kind of insensibility 
along with it. I ought not to lament my withdraw- 
ment from you as a calamity, but it has had all the 
effect of a calamity upon me. I am removed from 
those objects which habitually interested my heart, 
and, for a time, it refuses to be interested in other 
objects. I am placed at a distance from that scene 
to which I was most alive, and I feel a deadness to 
every other scene. The people who are now around 
me, carry an unquestionable kindness in their bo- 
soms, and vie with one another in the expression 
of it. I can easily perceive that there exists abun- 
dantly among them all the constituents of a highly 
interesting neighbourhood, and it may look cold 
and ungrateful in me that I am not interested. But 
it takes a time before the heart can attune itself t& 
the varieties of a new situation. It is ever recur- 
ring to the more familiar scenes of other days. The 
present ministers no enjoyment, and in looking to 
the past the painful circumstance is, that while the 
fancy will not be kept from straying to that neigh- 
bourhood which exercises over it all the power of 
a much-loved home, the idea that it is home no 



73 



longer comes with dread reality upon the mind, 
and turns the whole to bitterness. 

With a heart thus occupied, I do not feel that 
the admission of the public into our conference 
will be any great restraint upon me. I shall speak 
to you as if they were not present, and I do not con- 
ceive that they can take a great interest in what I 
say, because I have no time for the full and expli- 
cit statement of principles. I have this advantage 
with you that I do not have with others, that with 
you I can afford to be less explicit. I presume upon 
your recollections of what I have, for some time, 
been in the habit of addressing to you, and flatter 
myself that you may enter into a train of observa- 
tion which to others may appear dark, and abrupt, 
and unconnected. In penning this short Address, 
I follow the impulse of my regard for you. You will 
receive it with indulgence, as a memorial from one 
who loves you ; who is ever with you in heart, 
though not in person ; who classes among the dear- 
est of his recollections, the tranquil enjoyments he 
has had in your neighbourhood ; who carries upon 
his memory the faithful image of its fields and of 
its families ; and whose prayer for you all is, that 
you may so grow in the fruits of our common faith, 
as to be made meet for that unfading inheritance 
where sorrow and separation are alike unknown. 

Were I to sit down for the purpose of drawing 
out a list of all the actions which may be called 
sinful, it would be long before I could complete 
the enumeration. Nay, I can conceive; that by 

10 



adding one peculiarity after another, the variety 
may be so lengthened out as to make the attempt 
impossible. Lying, and stealing, and breaking the 
Sabbath, and speaking evil one of another, these 
are all so many sinful actions; but circumstances 
may be conceived which make one kind of lying 
different from another, and one kind of theft differ- 
ent from another, and one kind of evil speaking dif- 
ferent from another, and in this way the number of 
sinful actions may be greatly swelled out ; and 
should we attempt to take the amount, they may- 
be like the host which no man could number, and 
every sinner realizing one of these varieties, may 
wear his own peculiar complexion, and have a 
something about him which marks him out, and 
signalizes him from all the other sinners by whom 
he is surrounded. 

Yet, amid all this variety of visible aspect, there 
is one summary expression to which all sin may be 
reduced. There is one principle which, if it al- 
ways existed in the heart, and were always acted 
upon in the life, would entirely destroy the ex- 
istence of sin, and the very essence of sin lies in 
the want of this oae principle. Sin is a want of 
conformity to the will of God ; and were a desire 
to do the will of God at all times the overruling 
principle of the heart and conduct, there would be 
no sin. It is this want of homage to him and to his 
authority, which gives to sin its essential character. 
The evii things coming out of the heart, which is 
the residence of this evil principle, may be exceed- 



75 



fngly various, and may imparl a very different com- 
plexion to different individuals. This complexion 
may be more or less displeasing to the outward 
eye. The evil speaker may look to us more hate- 
ful than the voluptuary, the man of cruelty than 
the man of profaneness, the breaker of his word 
than the breaker of the Sabbath. I believe it will 
generally be found, that the sin which inflicts the 
more visible and immediate harm upon men, is, in 
the eye of men the more hateful sin. There is a 
readiness to execrate falsehood, and calumny, and 
oppression ; and along with this readiness there is 
an indulgence for the good-humoured failings of 
him who is the slave of luxury, and makes a god 
of his pleasure, and spends his days in all the 
thoughtlessness of one who walks in the counsel of 
his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
provided that his love of society leads him to share 
with others the enjoyment of all these gratifications, 
and his wealth enables him, and his moral honesty 
inclines him, to defray the expense of them. 

Behold, then, one frequent source of delusion. 
He whose sins are less hateful to the world than 
those of others, wraps up himself in a kind of secu- 
rity. I wrong no man. I have a heart that can 
be moved by the impulses of compassion. I carry 
in my bosom a lively sentiment of indignation at 
the tale of perfidy or violence ; and surely I may 
feel a satisfaction which others have no title to feel, 
who are guilty of that from which my nature recoils 
with a generous abhorrence. He forgets all the 



76 



while, that sin, in its essential character, may have 
as full and firm a possession of his heart, as of the 
man's with whom he is comparing himself; that 
there may be an ent ire disownal and forgetfulness 
of God ; that not one particle of reverence, or of 
acknowledgment, may be given to the Being with 
whom he has to do ; that whatever he may be in 
the eye of his neighbour, in the eye of him who 
seeth not as man seeth, he is guilty ; that, walking 
just as he would have done though there had been 
no divine government whatever, he is a rebel to 
that government ; and that amid all the compla- 
cency of his own feelings, and all the applause and 
good liking of his acquaintances, he wears all the 
deformity of rebelliousness in the eye of every spi- 
ritual being, who looks at the state of his heart, and 
passes judgment upon him by those very princi- 
ples which are to try him at that great day when 
the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open. 

If this were kept in view, it would lead to a more 
enlightened estimate of the character of man, than 
man in the thoughtlessness and unconcern of his 
natural state ever forms. It would lead us to see, 
that under all the hues and varieties of character, 
diversified as they are by constitutional taste, and 
the power of circumstances, there lurks one deep 
and universal disease, and that is the disease of a 
mind labouring under alienation from God, and with- 
out any practical sense of what is due to him. You 
will all admit it to be true, that the heart of a man 
may be under the full operation of this deadly poi* 



77 



son, while the man himself has a constitutional 
taste for the pleasures of social intercourse. You 
see nothing unlikely or impossible in this combi- 
nation. Now I want you to go along with me, when 
I carry my assertion still further; and sure I am that 
experience bears me out when 1 say, that the heart 
of a man may be under the full operation of a dis- 
like or indifference to God, while the man himself 
has a constitutional abhorrence at cruelty, a con- 
stitutional repugnance to fraud, a constitutional an- 
tipathy to what is uncourteous in manners, or harsh 
and unfeeling in conversation, a constitutional gen- 
tleness of character; or, to sum up the whole in 
one clause, a man may be free from many things 
which give him a moral hatefulness in the eye of 
others, and he may have many things which throw 
a moral loveliness around him, and the soul be un- 
der the entire dominion of that carelessness about 
God, which gives to sin its essential character. And 
upon him, even upon him, graceful and engaging 
as he may be by the lustre of his many accom- 
plishments, the saying of the Bible does not fail of 
being realized, that " the heart of man is deceit- 
ful above all things, and desperately wicked ; who 
can know it ?" 

And thus it is, that our great and ultimate aim in 
the reformation of a sinner, is the reformation of 
his heart. There may be many reformations short 
of this, and in which many are disposed to rest with 
deceitful complacency. I can conceive, that the 
man who formerly stole may steal no more, not be- 



7® 

cause he 13 now sanctified, and feels the obligation 
of religious principle, but because he is now trans- 
lated into better circumstances, and^ by the pow- 
er of example, has contracted that tone of honour- 
able feeling which exists among the upper classes 
of society. Here, then, is a reformation of the con- 
duct, while the heart, in respect of that which con- 
stitutes its exceeding sinfulness, is no better than 
before. The old leaven of ungodliness may over- 
spread its every desire, and its every affection; and 
while the outer man has been washed of one of its 
visible deformities, the inner man may still persist 
in its unmindfulness of God ; and the pollution of 
this greatest and vilest of all moral turpitude, may 
adhere to it as obstinately as ever. 

Now it appears to me, that these views, true in 
themselves, and deserving to be carried along with 
us through every inch of our religious progress ; 
have often been practically misapplied. I can con- 
ceive an inquirer under the influence of these views, 
to fall into such a process of reflection as the fol- 
lowing: c If the outer conduct be of no estimation 
in the sight of God, unless it stand connected with 
the actings of a holy principle in the heart, let us 
begin with the heart, and from the establishment 
of a holy principle there, purity of conduct will 
follow as an effect of course. Let us beware of lay- 
ing an early stress upon the doings of the outer 
man, lest we and others should have our eye turned 
from the reformation of the inner man, as the main 
and almost the exclusive object of a Christian's 



79 



ambition. Let us be fearful how we urge such and 
such visible reformations, either upon ourselves or 
those around us, lest they be made to stand in the 
place of that grand renewing process, by which 
the soul, dead in trespasses and sins, is made alive 
unto God. Let us labour to impress the necessity 
of this process, and seeing the utter inability of man 
to change his own heart, let us turn his eye from 
any exertions of his own, to that fulness which is 
in Christ Jesus, through whom alone he can obtain 
the forgiveness of all his sins, and such a measure 
of power resting upon him, as carries along with it 
all the purifying influences of a spiritual reforma- 
tion. In the mean time, let us take care how we 
speak about good works. Let the very mention of 
them put us into the defensive attitude of coldness 
and suspicion ; and instead of giving our earnest- 
ness or our energy to them, let us press upon our- 
selves and others the exercises of that faith, by 
which alone we are made the workmanship of God, 
and created unto such good works as he hath or- 
dained that we should walk in them.' 

Now there is a great deal of truth throughout 
the w hole of this train of sentiment ; but truth con- 
templated under such an aspect, and turned to such 
a purpose, as has the effect of putting an inquirer 
into a practical attitude, which appears to me to 
be unscriptural and wrong. 1 would not have him 
keep his hand for a single moment from the doing 
of that which is obviously right. I would not hav$ 
him to refrain from grappling immediately with 



80 



jeveiy one sin which is within the reach of his ex- 
ertions. I would not have him to incur the delay 
of one instant in ceasing to do that which is evil ; 
and I conceive that it is not till this is begun to, 
that he will learn to do that which is well. It ought 
not to restrain the energy of his immediate doing ? 
that he is told how doings are of no account, unless 
they are the doings of one who has gone through a 
previous regeneration. This ought not to keep 
him from doing. It should only lead him to com- 
bine with the prescribed doing, an earnest aspiring 
after a cleaner heart, and a better spirit than he yet 
finds himself to have. It is very true, that a man 
may do an outwardly good thing, and rest in what 
he has done. But it is as true, that a man may do 
the outwardly good thing he is bidden do, and, in- 
stead of resting, may look forward with diligent 
striving, and earnest humble prayer, to some great- 
er things than this. Now this last, my brethren, is 
the attitude I want to put you into. Let the thief 
give up his stealing at this moment. Let the drunk- 
ard give up his intemperance. Let the evil speak- 
er give up his calumnies. Let the doer of all that is 
obviously wrong, break off his sins, and turn him 
to the doing of all that is obviously right. Let no 
one thing, not even the speculations of orthodoxy,* 

* Sorry should I be, if a term expressive of right notions on the 
most interesting of all subjects, were used by me with a levity at 
all calculated to beget an indifference to the soundness of your 
religious opinions, or to divert your most earnest attention from 
those inquiries, which have for their object the true will? and thfe 
true, way of God for the salvation of men. 



31 



be suffered to stand a barrier against your entrance 
into the field of immediate exertion. I raise the 
very first blow of my trumpet against the visible 
iniquities which I see to be in you, and if there be 
any one obviously right thing you have hitherto 
neglected, 1 will not consume one particle of time, 
before I call upon you to do it. 

It is quite in vain to say that all this is not called 
for, or that I am now spending my strength and 
your time in combating an error which has no prac- 
tical existence. You must be quite familiarized 
with the melancholy spectacle of a zealous pro- 
fessor mourning over the sinfulness of his heart, 
and at the same time putting forth his hand, with- 
out one sigh of remorse, to what is sinful inordinary 
conduct. Have you never witnessed one, who 
could speak evil of his neighbour, and was at the 
same time trenched among what he thought the 
speculations of orthodoxy, and made the utter cor- 
ruption of the soul of man one of these specula- 
tions? Is it not enough to say that he is a mere 
speculative Christian; for the very same thing 
may be detected in the practice of one who feels a 
real longing to be delivered from the power of 
that sin, which he grieves has such an entire do- 
minion over him. And yet, strange to tell, there 
is many an obvious and every-day sin, which is not 
watched against, which is not struggled against, 
and the commission of which gives no uneasiness 
whatever. The man is as it were so much occu- 
pied with the sinfulness of his heart, that he neither 

11 



feels nor attends to the sinfulness of his Conducts 
He wants to go methodically to work. He wants 
to begin at the beginning, and he forms his esti- 
mate of what the beginning is upon the arrange- 
ments of human speculations. It sounds very 
plausibly, that as out of the heart are the issues of 
life, the work of an inquiring Christian must be- 
gin there; but the mischief I complain of is, that 
in the first prosecution of this work, months or 
years may be consumed ere the purified fountain 
send forth its streams, or the repentance he is as- 
piring after tell on the plain and palpable doings 
t)f his ordinary conduct. Hence, my brethren, the 
mortifying exhibition of great seal,- and much talk, 
and diligent canvassing and conv ersing about the 
abstract principles of the Christian faith, combined 
with what is visible in the Christian practice, be- 
ins: at a dead stand, and not one inch of sensible 
progress being made in any one thing which the 
eye can witness, or the hand can lay a tangible 
hold upon. The man is otherwise employed. He 
is busy with the first principles of the subject. He 
still goes on with his wonted peevishuess within 
doors, and his wonted dishonesties without doors. 
He has not yet come to these matters. He is taken 
up with laying and labouring at the foundation. 
The heart is the great subject of his anxiety ; and in 
the busy exercise of mourning and confessing, 
and praying, and studying the right management 
of his heart, he may take up months or years before 
he come to the deformities of his outward and or- 



83 



dinary conduct. I will venture to go. farther, my 
brethren, and assert, that if this be the track he is 
on, it will be a great chance if he ever come to 
them at all. To the end of his days he may be a 
talking, and inquiring, and speculating, and I 
doubt not, along wiih all this, a church-going and 
ordinance-loving Christian. But I am much afraid 
that he is, practically speaking, not in the way to 
the solid attainments of a Christian, whose light 
shines before men. All that meets the eye of daily 
observers may have undergone no change what- 
ever, and the life of the poor man may be nothing 
better than the dream of a delusive and bewilder- 
ing speculation. 

Now, it is very true that, agreeably to the re- 
marks with which I prefaced this argument, the 
great and ultimate aim of all reformation is to re- 
form the heart, and to bring it into such a state of 
principle and desire, that God may be glorified in 
soul and spirit as well as in body. This is the point 
that is ever to be sought after, and ever to be 
pressed forward to. Under a sense of his deficien- 
cies from this point, a true Christian will read dili- 
gently that he may learn the gospel method of 
arriving at it. He will pray diligently that the clean 
heart may be created, and the right spirit may be 
renewed within him. The earnestness of his at- 
tention to this matter will shut him up more and 
more into the faith of that perfect sacrifice, which 
his short-comings from a holy and heart-searching 
law will ever remind him of, as the firm and the 



84 



only ground of his acceptance with God. The 
same honest reliance on the divine testimony, 
which leads him to close with the doctrine of the 
atonement, and to rejoice in it, will also lead him 
to close with the doctrine of sanctification, and dili- 
gently to aspire after it. Now, in the business of 
so aspiring after this object, it is not enough that 
he read diligently in the Word; it is not enough 
that he pray diligently for the Spirit. These are 
two ingredients in the business of seeking after his 
object, but they are not the only ones ; and what I 
lament is, that a fear about the entireness of his 
orthodoxy leads many a zealous inquirer to look 
coldly and askance at another ingredient in this 
business. He should not only read diligently and 
pray diligently, but he should do diligently every 
one right thing that is within his reach, and that 
he finds himself to have strength for. Any one 
author who talks of the insignificance of doings, 
in such away as practically to restrain an inquirer 
from vigorously and immediately entering upon the 
performance of them, misleads that inquirer from 
the scriptural method, by which we are directed to 
a greater measure of light and of holiness than we 
are yet in possession of. He detaches one essential 
ingredient from the business of seeking. He may 
set the spirit of his reader a roaming over some 
field of airy speculation ; but he works no such 
salutary effect upon his spirit, as evinces itself by 
any one visible or substantial reformation. I have 
dftenand often attempted to press this lesson upon 



85 



you, my brethren ; and I bear you testimony, that, 
while a resistance to practical preaching has been 
imputed to the zealous professors of orthodoxy, 
you listened with patience, and 1 trust not without 
fruit, when addressing you as if you had just be- 
gun to stir yourselves in the matter of your salva 
tion. I ranked it among my preliminary instruc- 
tions, that you should cease from the evil of your 
doings ; that you should give up all that you 
know to be wrong in your ordinary conduct; that 
the thief should restrain himself from stealing, the 
liar from falsehood, the evil speaker from back- 
biting, the slothful labourer in the field from eye- 
service, the faithless house maid in the family from 
all purloining and all idleness. 

The subterfuges of hypocrisy are endless ; and 
if it can find one in a system of theology, it will 
be as glad of it from that quarter as from any 
other. Some there are who deafen the impression 
of all these direct and immediate admonitions, by 
saying that before all these doings are insisted on, 
we must lay well and labour well at the founda- 
tion of faith in Christ, without whom we can do 
nothing. The truth, that without Christ we can do 
nothing, is unquestionable ; but it would take ma- 
ny a paragraph to expose its want of application 
to the use that is thus made of it. But to cut short 
this plea of indolence for delaying the painful 
work of surrendering ail that is vicious in conduct ; 
Set me put it to your common sense whether a thief 
would not, and could not give up stealing for a 



86 



week, if he had the reward of a fortune waiting him 
at the end of it ; whether, upon the same reward, 
an evil speaker could not, for the same time, im- 
pose a restraint upon his lips, and the slothful ser- 
vant become a most pains-taking and diligent work- 
er, and the liar maintain an undeviating truth 
throughout all his conversations. Each of these 
would find himself to have strength for these things, 
were the inducement of a certain temporal reward 
held out, or the dread of a certain temporal punish- 
ment were made to hang over him. Now, for the 
temporal punishment,! substitute the call of, "Flee 
from the coming wrath." Let this call have the 
effect it should have, and the effect it actually does 
have, on many who are not warped 'by a mislead- 
ing speculation, and it will make them stir up such 
strength as they possess, and give up, in deed, much 
of their actual misconduct. This effect it had in 
the days of John the Baptist. People on his call, 
gave up their violence and their extortions, and 
the evil of many of their doings, and were thus 
put into what God in his wisdom counted a fit state 
of preparation for the Saviour. If there was any 
thing in the revelation of the Gospel calculated to 
supersede this call of, " Cease you from the evil of 
your doings," then I could understand the indiffer- 
ence, or the positive hostility, of zealous pretend- 
ers to the work of addressing practical exhortation 
to inquirers at the very outset of their progress. But 
so far from being superseded by any thing that the 
Gospel lays before us, the Author and the first 



87 



preachers of the Gospel just took up the lesson of 
John, and at the very commencement of their mi- 
nistry did they urge it upon people to turn them 
from the evil of their doings. Repent and believe 
the Gospel, says our Saviour. Repent and turn 
unto God, and do works meet for repentance, says 
the Apostle Paul. And there must be something 
wrong, my brethren, if you resist me urging it upon 
you, to give up at this moment, even though it 
should be the first moment of your concern about 
salvation, to give up all that is obviously wrong ; 
to turn you to all that is obviously right ; to grapple 
with every sin you can lay your hand upon ; and if 
it be true, in point of experience and common sense, 
that many a misdeed may be put away from you 
on the allurement of some temporal reward; then 
if you have faith in the reality of eternal things, 
the hope of an escape from the coming wrath may 
and will tell immediately upon you, and we shall 
see among you a stir, and a diligence, and a doing, 
and a visible reformation. 

It is a great matter to chase away ail mysticism 
from the path by which a sinner is led unto God: 
and it is to be lamented that many a speculation of 
many a respected divine, has the effect of throwing 
a darkening cloud of perplexity over the very en- 
trance of this path. I tell you a very plain thing, 
and, if it be true, it is surely of importance that you 
should know it, when I tell you, that if you are a 
servant, and are visited with a desire after salva- 
tion, then a faithful performance of your daily task 



88 



is a step without which the object you aim at is un- 
attainable. If you are a son, a more punctual ful- 
filment of your parent's bidding is another step. If 
you are a neighbour, a more civil and obliging de- 
portment to those around you is another step. If 
you are a dealer, the adoption of a just weight and 
a just measure is another step. There are some 
who, afraid of your attempting to get acceptance 
with God by the merit of your own doings, would 
not venture to urge all this at the outset, lest they 
should lead you to rest on a delusive ground of 
confidence. They would try to get a perfect and 
a clear understanding of the right ground of accept- 
ance established, previous to the use of arty such 
urgency ; and then, upon this principle being well 
laid within you, they might take the liberty of tell- 
ing you your duty. Their fearfulness upon this 
point forms a very striking contrast to the free, and 
unembarrassed, and energetic manner, in which 
the Bible, both of the Old and New Testament^ 
calls on every man who comes within the reach of 
a hearing, to cease from all sin, and turn him to all 
righteousness. In following its example, let us be 
fearless of all consequences. It may not suit the ar- 
tificial processes of some of our systems, nor fall in 
with the order of their well-weighed and carefully 
arranged articles, to tell at the very outset of those 
obvious reformations which I am now pressing 
upon you. But sure 1 am that an apostle would 
have felt no difficulty on the subject; nor whatever 
the visible sin which deformed you, or whatever the 



89 



visible act of obedience in which you were de« 
ficient, would he have been restrained from giving 
his immediate energy to the work of calling on you 
to abstain from the one and to do the other. 

The disciples of John could not have such a 
clear view of the ground of acceptance before God, 
as an enlightened disciple of the apostles. Yet the 
want of this clear view did not prevent them from 
being right subjects for John's preparatory instruc- 
tions. And what were these instructions? Soldiers 
were called on to give up their violence, and pub- 
licans their exactions, and rich men the confine- 
ment of their own wealth to their own gratification; 
and will any man hesitate for a moment to decide, 
whether those who turned away from the directions 
of the forerunner, or those who followed them, were 
in the likeliest state for receiving light and improve- 
ment from the subsequent teaching of the Saviour? 

But there is one difference between them and 
us. The whole of Christ's teaching, as put down 
in the word of God, is already before us. Now what 
precise effect should this have upon the nature of 
an initiatory address to sinners ? The right answer 
to this question will confirm, or it will demolish 
the whole of our preceding argument. The alone 
ground of acceptance, is the righteousness of Christ 
imputed to all who believe. This truth deserves 
to be taken up, and urged immediately in the hear- 
ing of all who are within the reach of the preach- 
ers voice. Till this truth be received, there should 
be no rest to the sinner, there is no reconciliation 

n 



96 

with God, nor will he attain that consummation of 
holiness, without which there can be no meetness 
for the enjoyment of heaven. But some are rea- 
dier to receive this truth than others. The reform- 
ing publicans and harlots of John were in a state of 
greater readiness to receive this truth, than either 
the Pharisees, or those publicans and harlots who, 
unmindful of John, still persisted in their iniquities. f 
And who will be in greater readiness to receive this 
truth in the present day ? Will it be the obstinate 
and determinate doers of all that is sinful, and that 
too in the face of a call, that they should do works 
meet for repentance ? Or will it be those who, un- 
der the influence of this call, do what the disciples 
of John did before them, turn them from the evil 
of their manifest iniquities, and so give proof cf 
their earnestness in the way of salvation ? It is 
true that, along with such a call, we eiight now 
urge a truth which even John could not. But are 
we to suspend the call of doing works meet for re- 
pentance, till this truth be urged and established in 
the mind of the hearer ? Surely if God thought it 
wise to ply sinners with a call to turn them from 
the evil of their ways, before he fully revealed 
to them the evangelical ground of their accep- 
tance, we may count it scriptural and safe to ply 
them with this call at the same time, that we state 
to them the evangelical ground of their acceptance. 
It is true, that the statement may not be compre- 
hended all at once. It may be years before it is 
listened to by the careless^ before it is rested m 



SI 



by the desponding, before the comfort of it is at all 
felt or appropriated by the doubting and melan- 
choly inquirer. Now what 1 contend for is, that 
during this interval of time, these people may and 
ought to be urged with the call of departing from 
their iniquities. This very call was brought to bear 
on the disciples of John, before the ground of their 
acceptance was fully made known to them ; and it 
might be brought to bear on sinners now, even 
though it should be before the ground of their ac- 
ceptance be fully understood by them. The erYect 
of this preparatory instruction in these days, was to 
fit John's disciples for the subsequent revelation of 
Christ and his apostles. It is true, that we are in 
possession of that doctrine which they only had 
the prospect of. But it accords with experience, 
that this doctrine might be addressed without ef- 
fect for years to men inquiring after salvation. The 
doctrine of justification by the righteousness of 
Christ, might be announced in all its force, and in 
all its simplicity, to men who hold out against it ; 
and you would surely say of them, that the way of 
the Lord had not been prepared to their minds, nor 
his paths made straight. Now we read of such a 
preparation set a going in behalf of men, to whom 
this doctrine had not yet been revealed. Will this 
preparation be altogether ineffectual in behalf of 
men by whom this doctrine is not yet understood? 
Surely it is quite evident, that in the days of John, 
men who, in obedience to his call, were struggling 
with their sins ; were in a likelier way for receiving 



those larger measures of truth, which were after- 
ward revealed, than they who, in the face of that 
call, were obstinately and presumptuously retaining 
them. Suffer us to avail ourselves of the same ad- 
vantage now. You, my brethren, who, in obedi- 
ence to the calls that have been sounded in your 
hearing, are struggling with your sins, are in a like- 
lier way for receiving those larger measures of truth 
which are now revealed, than those of you who feel 
no earnestness, and are making no endeavours upon 
the subject. While, therefore, I announce to yon, 
in the most distinct terms, that you will not be 
saved unless you are found in the righteousness of 
Christ, this will not restrain me at the very same 
time from doing what John did. You know how 
his disciples were prepared for the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, who guides unto all truth ; and while 
I do not think that any one point of time is too early 
for offering Christ to you, in all the benefits of his 
sacrifice, in all the imputed merits of his perfect 
righteousness, in all the privileges which he has 
proclaimed and purchased for believers ; all I con- 
tend for is, that neither is there any point of time 
too early for letting you know 7 , that all sin must be 
abandoned, for calling on you to enter4f*to the work 
of struggling with all sin immediately, for warning 
you, that while you persist in those sinful actions 
which you might give up, and would give up, were 
a temporal inducement held out to you, I have no 
evidence of your receiving benefit from the w 7 ord 
of salvation that I am sounding in your ears. There 



93 



is surely room for telling sinners more than one 
thing, in the course of the very earliest lesson that 
is laid before them. It is an exclusive deference 
to the one point, and the one principle, and the 
bringing of every thing else into a forced subordi- 
nation upon it, which has enfeebled many an at- 
tempt to turn sinners to Christ from their iniquities. 
I can surely tell a man, that unless he is walking 
in a particular line, he will not reach the object he 
is aiming at ; and I can tell him at the same time, 
that neither will he reach it, unless he have his eyes 
open, and he look upon the object. On these two 
unquestionable truths, I bid him both walk and 
look at the same time, and at the same time he car* 
do both. In the same manner I may tell a man, 
that unless he give up stealing, he shall not reach 
heaven ; and I may also tell him, that unless he 
accept, by faith, Christ as his alone Saviour, he shall 
not reach heaven. On these two truths I found two 
practical directions; and I must be convinced, that 
the doing of the one hinders the doing of the other, 
ere I desist from that which the first teachers of 
Christianity did before me, — proclaim Christ, and 
within the compass of the same breathing, call on 
men to do works meet for repentance. 

In the order of time, the practical instructions of 
John went before the full announcement of the 
doctrines of salvation. I do not think, however, 
that this order is authoritative upon us ; but far less 
do I think that our full possession of the doctrine 
of salvation confers any authority upon us for re- 



94 



versing the historical process of the New Testa- 
ment. I bring all the truths which the teachers of 
these days addressed to the sinners among whom 
they laboured, to bear immediately upon you sin- 
ners now. And while I call upon you to turn from 
the evil of your ways, I also warn you of the dan- 
ger of putting away from you the offered Saviour, 
or refusing all your confidence in that name than 
which there is no other given under heaven where- 
by men can be saved. 

If by faith be meant the embracing of one doc- 
trine, then I can understand how some might be 
alarmed lest an outset so practical should depose 
faith from the precedency which belongs to it. But 
if by faith be meant a reliance on the whole testi- 
mony of Scripture, then the precedency of faith is 
not at all broken in upon. If, on the call of " Flee 
from the coming wrath," I get you to struggle it 
with your more palpable iniquities, I see in that 
very struggle the operation of a faith in the divine 
testimony about the realities of an invisible world, 
and I have reason to bless God that he has wrought 
in you what I am sure no argument and no ve- 
hemence of mine could, without the power of his 
Spirit, ever have accomplished. Those of you who 
have thus evinced one exercise of faith, I look upon 
as more hopeful subjects for another exercise, than 
those of you who remain trenched in obstinacy 
and unconcern. And when I tell the former, that 
nothing will get them acceptance with God, but 
the mediation of Christ offered to all who come, it 



95 



will be to them, and not to the latter, that I shall 
look for an earnest desire after the offered Saviour, 
When I tell them that they affront God by not re- 
ceiving the record which he gives of his Son, it wiH 
be to them, and not to the others, that I shall look 
for a submissive and thankful acquiescence in the 
whole of his salvation; and thus passing with the 
docility of little children from one lesson of the Bi- 
ble to another ; these are the people who, working 
because God so bids them, will count that a man 
is not justified by the works of the law, because 
God so tells them ; these are the people who, not 
offended by what Christ told them at the outset, 
that he who cometh unto him must forsake all, wiH 
evince their willingness to forsake all, by turning 
from their iniquities, and coming unto Christ; these 
are the people who, while they do w 7 hat they may 
with their hands, will think that while their heart 
is not directed to the love of God, they have done 
nothing ; and counting it a faithful saying, that with- 
out Christ they can do nothing, they will take to 
him as their sanctifier as well as their Saviour, and 
having received him as the Lord their righteous- 
ness, will ever repair to him, and keep by him as 
the Lord their strength. 

While I urge upon you the doing of every obvi- 
ously right thing, you will not conceive of me that 
I want you to rest in this doing. I trust that my 
introductory paragraphs may convince you how 
much of this doing may be gone through, and yet 
the mighty object of the obedience of the willing 



96 



'heart might be unreached and unaccomplished* 
Not to urge the doing, lest you should rest, would 
be to deviate from scriptural example. And again, 
to urge the doing, and leave you to rest, would be 
also to deviate from scriptural example. John the 
Baptist urged the doing of many things, and his 
faithful disciples set themselves to the performance 
of what he bade them do. They entered imme- 
diately on the field of active and diligent service. 
But did they stop short ? No ; out of the very 
preaching of their master did they obtain a caution 
against resting; and the same submissive deference 
to his authority, in virtue of which they were set a 
working, led them also, along with their working 
at the things which he set them to, to look forward 
to greater things than these. He told them ex- 
pressly, that all his preaching was as nothing to the 
preaching of one who was to come after him. They 
were diligent with present things, but be assured 
that they combined with this diligence the attitude 
of looking forward to greater things. Is this the at- 
titude of men who place their repose and their 
dependence upon the performances on hand ? 
Was it not the attitude of men walking in the way 
revealed by a messenger from heaven, to the ob- 
ject which this messenger pointed out to them ? 
I call on you to commence at this moment an im- 
mediate struggle with all sin, and an immediate 
striving after all righteousness ; but I would not be 
completing even the lesson of John, and far less 
would I be bringing forward the counsel of God 



97 



as made known to us in his subsequent revelation, 
were I to say any thing which led you to stop short 
at those visible reformations, which formed the 
great burden of John's practical addresses to his 
countrymen ; and therefore along with your doing, 
and most diligently doing all that is within your 
reach, I call on you to pray, and most fervently and 
faithfully to pray for that larger baptism of the Ho- 
ly Ghost, by which your hearts may be cleansed 
from all their corruptions, and you be enabled to 
render unto God all the purity of a spiritual obe- 
dience. 

I cannot expatiate within the limits of this short 
Address on the texts both of the Old and New Tes- 
tament, which serve to establish, that the right at- 
titude of a returning sinner is what I have some- 
times called in your hearing, the compound atti- 
tude of service and expectation. But I shall re- 
peat a few of these texts, that they may suggest 
what you have been in the habit of hearing from 
me upon this subject. "And Samuel spake to all 
the house of Israel saying, if ye do return unto the 
Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange 
gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare 
your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and 
he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philis- 
tines. Then the children of Israel did put away 
Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only." 
" They will not frame their doings to turn unto the 
Lord." " Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment 
and do justice, for my salvation is near to come, 

13 



98 



and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the 
man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth 
hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting 
it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." 
u Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the poor 
that are cast out into thy house. When thou seest 
the naked, cover him, and hide not thyself from 
thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth 
as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth 
speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before 
thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward." 
" He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will iove him ? 
and will manifest myself unto him." " For who- 
soever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall 
have more abundance ; but whosoever hath not, 
from him shall be taken away even that he hath." 
" Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these 
least commandments, and shall teach men so, he 
shall be called the least in the kingdom of hea- 
ven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the 
same shall be called great in the kingdom of hea- 
ven." "And we are witnesses of these things ; and 
so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given 
to them that obey him." "Trust in the Lord, and 
do good." , 

But danger presses on us in every direction ; and 
in the work of dividing the word of truth, many, 
and very many, are the obstacles which lie in the 
way of our doing it rightly. When a Minister gives 



99 



his strength to one particular lesson, it often car- 
ries in it the appearance of his neglecting all the 
rest, and throwing into the back ground other les- 
sons of equal importance. It might require the 
ministrations of many years to do away this ap- 
pearance. Sure I am, that 1 despair of doing it 
away within the limits of this short Address to any 
but yourselves. You know all that I have urged 
upon the ground of your acceptance with God; 
upon the freeness of that offer which is by Christ 
Jesus ; upon the honest invitations which every 
where abound in the Gospel, that all who will may 
take hold of it; upon the necessity of being found 
by God, not in your own righteousness, but in the 
righteousness which is of Christ ; upon the help- 
lessness of man, and how all the strugglings of his 
own unaided strength can never carry him to the 
length of a spiritual obedience ; upon the darkness 
and enmity of his mind about the things of God, 
and how this can never be dissolved, till he who by 
nature stands afar off is brought near by the blood 
of the atonement, and he receives that repentance 
and that remission of sins, which Christ is exalted 
a Prince and a Saviour to dispense to all who be- 
lieve in him. These are offers and doctrines which 
might be addressed, and ought to be addressed, 
immediately to all But the call I have been urging 
upon you through the whole of this pamphlet, of 
"Cease ye from your manifest transgressions," 
should be addressed along with them. Now here 
lies the difficulty with many a sincere lover of the 



loa 

truth as it is in Jesus. He feels a backwardness in 
urging this call, lest it should somehow or other 
impair the freeness of the offer, or encroach upon 
the singleness of that which is stated to be our 
alone meritorious ground of acceptance before God. 
In reply to this, let it be well observed, that though 
the offer be at all times free, it is not at all times 
listened to ; and though the only ground of accept- 
ance be that righteousness of Christ which is unto 
all them and upon all them that believe, yet some 
are in likelier circumstances for being brought to this 
belief than others. There is one class of hearers 
who are in a greater state of readiness for being im- 
pressed by the Gospel than another, — and I fear 
that all the use has not been made of this principle 
which Scripture and experience warrant us to do. 
Every attempt to work man into a readiness for 
receiving the offer has been discouraged, as if it 
carried in it a reflection against the freeness of the 
offer itself. The obedient disciples of John were 
more prepared for the doctrines of grace, than the 
careless hearers of this prophet ; but their obedi- 
ence did not confer any claim of merit upon them, 
it only made them more disposed to receive the 
good tidings of that salvation which was altogether 
of grace. A despiser of ordinances is put into a like- 
lier situation for receiving the free offer of the Gos- 
pel, by being prevailed upon to attend a church 
where this offer is urged upon his acceptance. His 
attendance does not impair the freeness of the of- 
fer. Yet where is the man so warped by a mislead- 



101 



ing speculation, as to deny that the doing of this 
previous to his union with Christ, and preparatory 
to that union, may be the very mean of the free 
offer being received. Again, it is the lesson both 
of experience and of the Bible, that the young are 
likelier subjects for religious induction than the 
old. The free offer may and ought to be address- 
en to both these classes ; but generally speaking, 
it is in point of fact more productive of good when 
addressed to the first class than the second. And we 
do not say that youth confers any meritorious title 
to salvation, nor do we make any reflection on the 
freeness of the offer, when we urge it upon the 
young, lest they should get old, and it have less 
chance of being laid before them with acceptance- 
We make no reflection upon the offer as to its cha- 
racter of freeness, but we proceed upon the obvi- 
ous fact, that, free as it is, it is not so readily listen- 
ed to or laid hold of by the second class of hearers 
as by the first. And, lastly, when addressing sin- 
ners now, all of them might and ought to be plied 
with the free offer of salvation at the very outset. 
But if it be true, that those of them who wilfully 
persist in those misdoings, which they could give 
up on the inducement of a temporal reward, will 
not, in point of fact, be so impressed by the offer, 
or be so disposed to accept of it, as those who (on 
the call of-—" Flee from the coming wrath f and 
on being told, that unless they repent they shall 
perish ; and on being made to know, what our Sa- 
viour made inquirers know at the very starting point 



102 



of their progress as his disciples, that he who fol« 
loweth after him must forsake all,) have begun to 
break off their sins, and to put the evil of their do- 
ings away from them : then we are not stripping the 
offer of its attribute of perfect freeness, but we are 
only doing what God in his wisdom did two thou- 
sand years ago ; we are, under Him, preparing souls 
for the reception of this offer, when, along with the 
business of proposing it, which we cannot do too 
early, we bring the urgency of an immediate call 
to bear on the children of iniquity, that they should 
cease to do evil, and learn to do well. 

The publicans and harlots entered into the king- 
dom of God before the Pharisees, and yet the lat- 
ter were free from the outward transgressions of the 
former. Now, the fear which restrains many from 
lifting the immediate call of, — " Cease ye from 
your transgressions," is, lest it should put those who 
obey the call into the state of Pharisees ; and there 
is a secret, though not avowed, impression in their 
minds, that it were better for their hearers to remain 
in the state of publicans and harlots, and in this 
state to have the offer of Christ and all his benefits 
set before them. But mark well^ that it was not 
the publicans and harlots who persisted in their ini- 
quities, but they who counted John to be a pro- 
phet, and in obedience to his call were putting 
their iniquities away from them, who had the ad- 
vantage of the Pharisees. None will surely say ? 
that those of them who continued as they were, 
were put into a state of preparation for the Saviour 



103 



by the preaching of John. Some will be afraid to 
say, that those of them who gave up their iniquities 
at the bidding of John were put into a state of pre- 
paration, lest it should encourage a pharisaical con- 
fidence in our own doings. But mark the distinc- 
tion between these and the Pharisees : The Phari- 
sees might be as free as the reforming publicans 
and harlots, of those visible transgressions which 
characterized them; but on this they rested their 
confidence, and put the offered Saviour away from 
them. The publicans and harlots, so far from rest- 
ing their confidence on the degree of reformation 
which they had accomplished, were prompted to 
this reformation by the hope of the coming Sa- 
viour. They connected with all their doings the ex- 
pectation of greater things. They waited for the 
kingdom of God that was at hand; and the preach- 
ing of John, under the influence of which they had 
put away from them many of their misdeeds, could 
never lead them to stop short at this degree of 
amendment, when the very same John told them 
of one who was to come after him, in comparison 
of whom he and all his sermons were as nothing. 
The Saviour did come, and he said of those publi- 
cans and harlots w 7 ho believed and repented at the 
preaching of John, that they entered the kingdom 
of heaven before the Pharisees. They had not 
earned that kingdom by their doings, but they 
were in a fitter and readier state for receiving the 
tidings of it. The gospel came to them en the 
footing of a free and unmerited offer ; and on this 



104 



footing it should be proposed to all. But it is not 
on this footing that it will be accepted by all. Not 
by men who, free from many glaring and visible 
iniquities, rest on the decency of their own charac- 
ter ; — not by men who, deformed by these iniqui- 
ties, still wilfully and obstinately persist in them ; 
but by men who, earnest in their inquiries after 
salvation, and who, made to know, as they ought 
to be at the very outset of their inquiries, that it is 
a salvation from sin as well as from punishment, 
have given up the practice of their outward ini- 
quities, as the first fruit and evidence of their ear- 
nestness. 

Let me, therefore, in addition to the lesson I 
have already urged upon you, w arn you against a 
pharisaical confidence in your own doings. While, 
on the one hand, I tell you that none are truly seek- 
ing who have not begun to do ; I, on the other hand, 
tell you, that none have truly found who have not 
taken up with Christ as the end of the law for 
righteousness. Let Jesus Christ, the same to-day, 
yesterday, and for ever, be the end of your conver- 
sation. Never take rest till you have found it in 
him. You never will have a well-grounded com- 
fort in your intercourse w T ith God, till you have 
learned the way of going to the throne of his grace 
in fellowship with Christ as your appointed Media- 
tor ; — you never will rejoice in hope of the coming 
glory, till your peace be made with God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord ; — you never will be sure of 
pardon, till you rest in the forgiveness of your sins 



105 



as coming to you through the redemption which is 
in his blood. And what is more, addressing you as 
people who have received a practical impulse to 
the obedience of the commandments, never forget, 
that, while the reformation of your first and earliest 
stages in the Christian life went no farther than to 
the amendment of your more obvious and visible 
deficiencies, this reformation, to be completed, 
must bring the soul and spirit, as well as the body, 
under a subserviency to the glory of God; and it 
never can be completed but by the shedding abroad 
of that Spirit which is daily poured on the daily 
prayers of believers: and I call upon you always to 
look up to God through the channel of Christ's ap- 
pointed mediatorship, that you may receive through 
this same channel a constant and ever increasing 
supply of the washing of regeneration and renew- 
ing of the Holy Ghost. 

1 call upon you to be up and doing ; but I call 
upon you with the very same breath, not to rest sa- 
tisfied with any dark, or doubtful, or confused no- 
tions about your way of acceptance with God; and 
Jet it be your earnest and never-ceasing object to 
be found in that way. While you have the com- 
mandments and keep them, look at the same time 
for the promised manifestations. To be indifferent 
whether you have a clear understanding of the righ- 
teousness of Christ, is the same as thinking it not 
worth your while to inquire into that which God 
thought it worth his while to give up his Son unto 
the death that he might accomplish. It is to af~ 

H 



106 



front God, by letting him speak while you refuse 
to listen or attend to him. Have a care, lest it be 
an insulting sentiment on your part, as to the worth 
of your polluted services, and that, sinful as they 
are, and defective as they are, they are good enough 
for God. Lean not on such a bruised reed ; but 
let Christ, in all the perfection of that righteous- 
ness, which is unto all them and upon all them that 
believe, be the alone rock of your confidence. Your 
feet will never get on a sure place till they be es- 
tablished on that foundation than which there is 
no other; and to delay a single moment in your 
attempts to reach it, and to find rest upon it, after 
it is so broadly announced to you, is to incur the 
aggravated guilt of those who neglect the great 
salvation, and who make God a liar, by suspending 
their belief of that record which he hath given of 
his Son, — " And this is the record that God hath 
given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 

Again 1 call upon you to be up and doing : and 
I call upon you to accept of Christ as your alone 
Saviour: but 1 call upon you, at the same time, to 
look to the whole extent of his salvation. a You 
hath he quickened, having forgiven you all tres- 
passes." There is the forgiveness of all that has 
been dead, and sinful, and alienated within you ; but 
there is also a quickening, and a reforming, and a 
putting within you a near and a lively sense of 
God, so as that you may henceforth serve him with 
newness of heart, and walk before him in all new- 
ness of life and of conversation. Your hearts will 



107 



be enlarged, so as e lhat you may run the way of all 
the commandments. O how it puts to flight all 
Pharisaical confidence in the present exercises of 
obedience, when one casts an enlightened eye 
over the whole extent of the Christian race, and 
thinks of the mighty extent of those attainments 
which were exemplified by the disciples of the 
New Testament! The service which 1 now yield, 
and is perhaps offered up in the spirit of bondage, 
must be offered up in the spirit of adoption. It 
must be the obedience of a child, who f ields the 
willing homage of his affections to his reconciled 
father. It must be the obedience of the heart; and 
O how far is a slavish performance of the bidden 
task, from the consent of the inner man to the law 
of that God whom he delights to honour! This 
love to him, and delight in him, occupy the fore- 
most place in the list of the bidden requirements. 
If I love the creature more than the Creator, I tram- 
ple on the authority of the first and greatest of the 
commandments; and what an imposing exhibition 
of sobriety, and justice, and almsgiving, and reli- 
gious decency, may be presented in the character 
and doings of him whose conversation is not in 
heaven, who minds earthly things, who loves his 
wealth more than God, who likes his ease and 
comfort on this side of time more than all his pros- 
pects on the other side of it, and who, therefore, 
though he may never have looked upon himself to 
be any thing else than a fair Christian, is looked 
upon by every spiritual being as a rebel to his God, 



103 



with the principle of rebellion firmly seated in his 
most vital part, even in his heart turned in cold- 
ness and alienation away from him. 

But if God be looked upon by you as a Father 
ivith whom you are reconciled through the blood 
of sprinkling, it will not be so with you. Now, this 
is what he calls you to do. He gives you a warrant 
to choose him as your God. He offers himself 
to your acceptance, and beseeches all to whom 
the word of salvation is sent, to be reconciled to 
Him. It is indeed a wonderful change in the state 
of a heart, when, giving up its coldness and indif- 
ference to God, (and I call upon every careless and 
unawakened man to tell me, upon his honesty, 
whether this be not the actual state of his heart,) 
it surrenders itself to Him with the warm and the 
willing tribute of all its affections. Now, there is 
not one power, within the compass of nature, that 
can bring about this change. It does not lie with 
man to give up the radical iniquity of an alienated 
heart; the Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, 
and the leopard his spots. But what cannot be done 
by him is done to him, when he accepts of the 
Gospel. The promises of Christ are abundantly 
performed upon all who trust in him. Through 
him is the dispensation of forgiveness, and with 
him is the dispensation of the all-powerful and all- 
subduing Spirit. While, then, with the very first 
mention of his name, I call on you to cease your 
hand from doing evil, surely there is nothing in the 
call that can lead you to stop at any one point of 



109 



obedience, when I, at the same time, tell you of 
the mighty change that must be accomplished, ere 
you are meet for the inheritance of the saints. You 
must be made the workmanship of God; you must 
be born again; you must be made to fee! your de- 
pendence on the power of the renewing Spirit ; 
and that power must come down upon you, and 
keep by you, and by his ever-needed supplies must 
form the habitual answer to your habitual and be- 
lieving prayers. 

I have now got upon ground on which many will 
refuse to go along with me. I can get their testi- 
mony to the spectacle of a reforming people, put- 
ting the visible iniquities of stealing, and lying, 
and evil speaking, and drunkenness, away from 
them; but from the moment we come to the only 
principle which confers any value on these visible 
expressions, even the willing homage of the heart 
to God, and to his law in all its spirituality and ex- 
tent; and from the moment that we come to the 
only expedient by w hich such a principle can ever 
obtain an establishment within us, (and we chal- 
lenge them to attempt the establishment of this 
principle in any other way,) even the operation of 
that spirit which is given to those who accept of 
Christ as he is laid before us in the Gospel; then, 
and at that moment, are we looked upon as having 
entered w ithin the borders of fanaticism ; and, while 
they lavish their superficial admiration on the flow- 
ers of virtue, do they refuse the patience of their 



110 



attention to the root from which they spring, or to 
the nourishment which maintains them. 

And here I cannot but record the effect of an ac- 
tual though undesigned experiment, which 1 pro- 
secuted for upwards of twelve years among you. 
For the greater part of that time, I could expatiate^ 
on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of 
falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny, — in 
a word, upon all those deformities of character, 
which awaken the natural indignation of the human 
heart against the pests and the disturbers of human 
society. Now could 1, upon the strength of these 
warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up 
his stealing, and the evil speaker his censorious- 
ness, and the liar his deviations from truth, I should 
have felt all the repose of one who had gotten his 
ultimate object. It never occurred to me that all 
this might have been done, and yet every soul of 
every hearer have remained in full alienation from 
God; and that even could I have established in 
the bosom of one who stole, such a principle of 
abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty, that he 
was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still 
have retained a heart as completely unturned to 
God, and as totally unpossessed by a principle of 
love to Him, as before. In a word, though I might 
have made him a more upright and honourable 
man, I might have left him as destitute of the es- 
sence of religious principle as ever. But the inte- 
resting fact is, that during the whole of that period 
in which I made no attempt against the natural 



Ill 



enmity of the mind to God, while I was Inattentive 
to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, even 
by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing 
acceptance on the other, of the gospel salvation; 
while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who 
by nature stands afar off, is brought near to the hea- 
venly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarce- 
ly ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way, as 
stripped him of all the importance of his character 
and his offices, even at this time I certainly did 
press the reformations of honour, and truth, and 
integrity among my people ; but I never once heard 
of any such reformations having been effected 
amongst them. If there was any thing at all brought 
about in this way, it was more than ever I got any 
account of. I am not sensible, that all the vehe- 
mence with which I urged the virtues and the pro- 
prieties of social life, had the weight of a feather 
on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it 
was not till I got impressed by the utter alienation 
of the heart in all its desires and affections from 
God ; it was not till reconciliation to Him became 
the distinct and the prominent object of my minis- 
terial exertions ; it was not till I took the scriptural 
way of laying the method of reconciliation before 
them ; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness 
through the blood of Christ was urged upon their 
acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given through the 
channel of Christ's mediatorshipto all who ask him, 
was set before them as the unceasing object of their 
dependaace and their prayers; it was not, in one 



112 



word, till the contemplations of my people were 
turned to these great and essential elements in the 
business of a soul providing for its interest with 
God, and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever 
heard of any of those subordinate reformations 
which I aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, 
but I am afraid at the same time, the ultimate ob- 
ject of my earlier ministrations. Ye servants, whose 
scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice, 
and drawn forth in my hearing a delightful testi- 
mony from your masters, what mischief you would 
have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacra- 
ments been accompanied by the sloth and the re- 
missness, and what, in the prevailing tone of moral 
relaxation, is counted the allowable purloining of 
your earlier days ! But a sense of your heavenly 
Master's eye has brought another influence to bear 
upon you ; and while you are thus striving to adorn 
the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, you 
may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the 
land to the acknowledgment of the faith. You 
have at least taught me, that to preach Christ is 
the only effective way of preaching morality in all 
its branches ; and out of your humble cottages have 
I gathered a lesson, which I pray God I may be 
enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider 
theatre, and to bring with all the power of its sub- 
duing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded 
population. 

And here it gives me pleasure to observe, thaf ? 
earnest as I have been for a plain and practical 



113 



outset, the very first obedience of John's disciples 
was connected with a belief in the announcement 
of a common 'Saviour. This principle was present 
with them, and had its influence on the earliest 
movements of their repentance. Faith in Christ 
had at that time but an obscure dawning in their 
minds; but they did not w T ait for its full and its 
finished splendour, till they should begin the work 
of keeping the commandments. To this infant faith 
there corresponded a certain degree of obedience, 
and this obedience grew more enlightened, more 
spiritual, more allied with the purity of the heart, 
and the movements of the inner man, just as faith 
obtained its brighter and larger accessions in the 
course of the subsequent revelations. The disci- 
ple of John keeping himself free from extortion and 
adultery, was a very different man from the Pha- 
risee, who was neither an extortioner nor an adul- 
terer. The mind of the Pharisee rested on his pre- 
sent performances ; the mind of the disciple was 
filled with the expectation of a higher Teacher, and 
he looked forward to him, and was in the attitude 
of readiness to listen, and believe, and obey. Many 
of them were transferred from the forerunner to the 
Saviour, and they companied w 7 ith him during his 
abode in the world, and were found with one ac- 
cord in one place on the day of Pentecost, and 
shared in the influences of that Comforter, whom 
Christ promised to send down upon his disciples 
on earth, from the place to which he had ascended 
in heaven ; and thus it is that the same men who 

15 



114 



.started with the preaching of John at the work of 
putting their obvious and palpable transgressions 
away from them, were met afterwards at the dis- 
tance of years living the life of faith in Christ, and 
growing in meetness for a spiritual inheritance, by 
growing in al! the graces and accomplishments of 
a spiritual obedience. There was a faith in Christ, 
which presided over the very first steps of their 
practical career ; but it is w orthy of being remarked, 
that they did not wait in indolence till this faith 
should receive its further augmentations. Upon this 
faith, humble as it was at its commencement, their 
Teacher exacted a corresponding obedience, and 
this obedience, so far from being suspended till what 
was lacking in their faith should be perfected, was the 
very path which conducted them to larger manifes- 
tations. Now is not faith a growing principle at this 
hour ? Is not the faith of an insipient Christian differ- 
ent in its strength, and in the largeness of its con- 
templations, from the faith of him who, by reason of 
use, has had his senses well exercised to discern both 
the good and the evil ? I am willing to concede it, 
for it accords with all my experience on the sub- 
ject, that some anticipation, however faint, of the 
benefit to be derived from an offered Saviour; 
some apprehension, however indistinct, of the mer- 
cy of God in Christ Jesus; some hope, inspired by 
the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, and which 
nothing but the preaching of that Gospel in all its 
peculiarity will ever awaken in the mind,— that 
these are the principles which preside over the very 



115 



first movements of a sinner, casting away from him 
his transgressions, and returning unto God. But let 
us not throw any impediment in the way of these 
first movements. Let us have a practical outset. 
Let us not be afraid of giving an immediate cha- 
racter of exertion to the very infancy of a Chris- 
tian's career. To wait in slavish adherence to sys- 
tem, till the principle of faith be deposited with all 
the tenacity of a settled assurance in the mind, or 
the brilliancy of a finished light be thrown around 
it, would be to act in the face of scriptural exam- 
ple. Let the gospel be preached in all its freeness 
at the very outset ; but let us never forget, that to 
every varying degree of faith in the mind of the 
hearer there goes an obedience along with it ; that 
to forsake the evil of his ways can never be pressed 
too early upon his observance; that this, and every 
subsequent degree of obedience, is the prescribed 
path to clearer manifestations ;* and that, to at- 
tempt the establishment of a perfect faith by the 
single work of expounding the truth, is to strike out 
a spark of our own kindling — it is to do the thing 
in our own way— it is to throw aside the use of 
scriptural expedients, and to substitute the mere 
possession of a dogma, for that principle which, 
growing progressively within us, animates and sus- 
tains the whole course of a humble, and diligent, 
and assiduous, and pains-taking Christian. 

Whence the fact, that the deriders and the ene- 
mies of evangelical truth set themselves forward 

* John. xiv. 21. : Acts, v. 82. 



m 

the exclusive advocates of morality ? It is be 
cause many of its friends have not ventured to shovV 
so bold and so immediate a front on tills subject as 
they ought to have done. They are positively 
afraid of placing morality on the fore-ground of 
their speculations* They do not like it to be so pro- 
minently brought forward at the commencement 
of their instructions. They have it, ay, and in a 
jpurer and holier form than its more ostentatious 
advocates ; but they have thrown a doctrinal bar- 
rier around it, which hides it from the general ob- 
servation. Would it not be better to drag it from 
this concealment — to bring it out to more imme- 
diate view— to place it in large and visible charac- 
ters on the very threshold of our subject ; and if our 
Saviour told his countrymen, at the very outset of 
their discipleship, that they who follow after him 
must forsake all*, is there any thing to prevent us 
from battling it, at the very outset of our minis- 
trations, with all that is glaringly and obviously 
wrong? Much should be done to chase away the 
very general delusion which exists among the peo- 
ple of this country, that the preachers of faith are 
not the preachers of morality. If there be any 
thing in the arrangements of a favourite system 
which are at all calculated to foster this delusion, 
these arrangements should just be broke in upon* 
Obedience should be written upon every signal; 
and departure from ail iniquity, should be made to 
float, in a bright and legible inscription, upon all 
our standards* 



117 



I call on you, my brethren, to abound in those 
good deeds, by which, if done in the body, Christ 
will be magnified in your bodies. I call on you for 
a prompt vindication of the truth as it is in Jesus, 
by your example and your lives. Let me hear of 
your being the most equitable masters, and the 
most faithful servants, and the most upright mem- 
bers of society, and the most watchful parents, and 
the most dutiful children. Never forget, that the 
object of the Saviour is to redeem you from all 
iniquity, and that every act of wilful indulgence, 
in any one species of iniquity, is a refusal to go 
along with him. Do maintain to the eye of by- 
standers the conspicuous front of a reforming, and 
conscientious, and ever-doing people. Meet the 
charge of those who are strangers to the power of 
the truth, by the noblest of all refutations — by the 
graces and accomplishments of a life given in faith- 
ful and entire dedication to the will of the Saviour. 
Let the remembrance of what he gave for you, 
ever stir you up to the sense of what you should 
give him back again ; and while others talk of 
good works, in such a way as to depose Christ 
from his preeminence, do you perform these good 
works through Christ, by the power of his grace 
working in you mightily. 

And think not that you have attained, or are al- 
ready perfect. Have your eye ever directed to the 
perfect righteousness of Christ, as the only ground 
of your acceptance with God, and as the only ex- 
ample you should never cease to aspire after. Rest 



118 



not in any one measure of attainment. Think not 
that you should stop short till you are righteous, 
even as he is glorious. Take unto you the whole 
armour of God, that you may be fitted for the con- 
test, and prove that you are indeed born again by 
the anointing which you have received, being an 
anointing which remaineth. May the very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly. May he shed abroad 
his love in your hearts. And may the Spirit which 
I call on you to pray for, in the faith of Him who 
is entrusted with the dispensation of it, impel you 
to all diligence, that you may be found of Him, at 
his coming, without spot, and blameless. 

I shall conclude this very hurried and imperfect 
Address, with the last words of my last sermon to 
you. 

" It is not enough that you receive Christ for the 
single object of forgiveness, or as a priest who 
has wrought out an atonement for you ; for Christ 
offers himself in more capacities than this one, and 
you do not receive him truly, unless you receive 
him just as he offers himself. Again, it is not enough 
that you receive Christ only as a priest and a pro- 
phet ; for all that he teaches will be to you a dead 
letter, unless you are qualified to understand and 
to obey it ; and if you think that you are qualified 
by nature, you, in fact, refuse his teaching, at the 
very time that you profess him to be your teacher, 
for he says, 4 without me ye can do nothing." You 
must receive him for strength, as well as for for- 



119 



giveness and direction, or, in other words, you 
must submit to him as your King, not merely to 
rule over you by his law, but to rule in you by 
his Spirit. You must live in constant depend- 
ance on the influences of his grace, and if you 
do so, you never will stop short at any one point 
of obedience; but, knowing that the* grace of God 
is all-powerful, you will suffer no difficulties to stop 
your progress; you will suffer no paltry limit of 
what unaided human nature can do, to bound your 
ambition after the glories of a purer and a better 
character than any earthly principle can accom- 
plish; you will enter a career, of which you at this 
moment see not the end ; you will try an ascent, 
of which the lofty eminence is hid in the darkness 
of futurity; the chilling sentiment, that no higher 
obedience is expected of me than what I can yield, 
will have no influence upon you, for the mighty 
stretch of attainment that you look forward to, is 
not what 1 can do, but what Christ can do in me ; 
and, with the all-subduing instrument of his grace 
to help you through every difficulty, and to carry 
you in triumph over every opposition, you will press 
forward conquering and to conquer ; and, while the 
world knoweth not the power those great and ani- 
mating hopes which sustain you, you will be mak- 
ing daily progress in a field of discipline and ac- 
quirement which they have never entered; and in 
patience and forgiveness, and gentleness and cha- 
rity, and the love of God and the love of your neigh- 
bour, which is like unto the love of God, you wil! 



120 



prove that a work of grace is going on in your hearts, 
even that work by which the image you lost at the 
fall is repaired and brought back again, the empire 
of sin within you is overthrown, the subjection of 
your hearts to what is visible and earthly is ex- 
changed for the power of the unseen world over its 
every affectioq, and you be filled with such a faith, 
and such a love, and such a superiority to perish- 
able things, as will shed a glory over the whole of 
your daily walk, and give to every one of your do- 
ings the high character of a candidate for eternity. 

" Christ is offered to all of you for forgiveness. 
The man who takes him for this single object must 
be looking at him with an eye half shut upon the 
revelation he makes of himself. Look at him with 
an open and a steadfast eye, and then I will call 
you a true believer; and sure I am, that if you do 
so, you cannot avoid seeing him in the earnestness 
of his desire that you should give up all sin, and 
enter from this moment into all obedience. True, 
and most true, my brethren, that faith will save you ; 
but it must be a whole faith in a whole Bible. 
True, and most true, that they who keep the com- 
mandments of Jesus shall enter into life; but you 
are not to shrink from any one of these command- 
ments, or to say because they are so much above 
the power of humanity, that you must give up the 
task of attempting them. True, and most true, that 
he w ho trusteth to his obedience as a saviour, is 
shifting his confidence from the alone foundation 
it can rest upon. Christ is your Saviour; and 



m 

when I call upon you to rejoice in that reconcilia- 
tion whirh is through him, I call upon you not to 
leave him for a single moment, when you engage 
in the work of doing those things which if left un- 
done, will exclude us from the kingdom of heaven. 
Take him along with you into all your services. 
Let the sentiment ever be upon you, that what 1 
am now doing I may do in my own strength to the 
satisfaction of man, but I must have the power of 
Christ resting upon the performance, if I wish to 
do it in the way that is acceptable to God. Let 
this be your habitual sentiment, and then the sup- 
posed opposition between faith and works vanishes 
into nothing. The life of a believer is made up 
of good works; and faith is the animating and the 
power- working principle of every one of them. The 
spirit of Christ actuates and sustains the whole 
course of your obedience. You w r alk not away from 
him,but in the language of the text, you { walk in him,' 
(Col. ii. 6.) and as there is not one of your doings 
in which he does not feel a concern, and prescribe 
a duty for you, so there is not one of them in which 
his grace is not in readiness to put the right prin- 
ciple into your heart, and to bring it out into your 
conduct, and to make your walk accord with your 
profession, so as to let the world see upon you with- 
out, the power and the efficacy of the sentiment 
within; and thus, while Christ has the whole merit 
of your forgiveness, he has the whole merit of your 
sanctification also, and the humble and deeply- 
felt consciousness of 4 nevertheless not me, but the 

16 



122 



grace of God that is in me,' restores to Jesus Christ 
all the credit and all the glory which belong to 
him, by making him your only, and your perfect, 
and your entire, and your altogether Saviour. 

" Choose him, then, my brethren, choose him 
as the Captain of your salvation. Let him enter 
into your hearts by faith, and let him dwell conti- 
nually there. Cultivate a daily intercourse and a 
growing acquaintance with him. O, you are in 
safe company, indeed, when your fellowship is 
"with him ! The shield of his protecting mediator- 
ship is ever between you and the justice of Cod ; 
and out of his fulness there goeth a constant stream, 
to nourish, and to animate, and to strengthen every 
believer. Why should the shifting of human in- 
struments so oppress and so discourage you, when 
he is your willing friend : when he is ever present, 
and is at all times in readiness ; when he, the same 
to-day, yesterday, and for ever, is to be met with 
in every place; and while his disciples here, giving 
way to the power of sight, are sorrowful, and in 
great heaviness, because they are to move at a 
distance from one another, he, my brethren, he 
has his eye upon all neighbourhoods and all coun- 
tries, and will at length gather his disciples into one 
eternal family? With such a Master, let us quit 
ourselves like men. With the magnificence of 
eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, 
dwindle into its own littleness. If God is pleased 
to spare me, 1 trust I shall often meet with you in 
person, even on this side ©f the grave; but if nor 3 



123 



let us often meet in prayer at the mercy -seat of 
God. While we occupy different places on earth, 
let our mutual intercessions for each other go to 
one place in heaven. Let the Saviour put our sup- 
plications into one censer; and be assured, my 
brethren, that after the dear and the much-loved 
scenery of this peaceful vale has disappeared from 
my eye, the people who live in it shall retain a 
warm and an ever-during place in my memory;- — 
and this mortal body must be stretched on the bed 
of death, ere the heart which now animates it can 
resign its exercise of longing after you, and pray- 
ing for you, that you may so receive Christ Jesus, 
and so walk in him, and so hold fast the things you 
have gotten, and so prove that the labour I have 
had amongst you has not been in vain ; that when 
the sound of the last trumpet awakens us, these 
eyes, which are now bathed in tears, may open 
upon a scene of eternal blessedness, and we, my 
brethren, whom the providence of God has with- 
drawn for a little while from one another, may on 
that day be found side by side at the right hand of 
the everlasting throne," 



APPENDIX. 



SINCE the present edition of this work was putting to press, I have seen a review of it 
by the Christian Instructor, and the following are the immediate observations which the 
perusal of this review has suggested. 

I meant no attack on any body of clergy, and I have made no attack upon them. The 
people whom I addressed were the main object on which my attention rested; and any 
thing I have said in the style of animadversion, was chiefly, if not exclusively, with a re- 
ference to that perverseness which I think I have witnessed in the conceptions and habits 
of private Christians. 

I have alluded, no doubt, to a method of treatment on the part of some of the teachers 
of Christianity, and which I believe to be both inefficient and unscriptural. But have I at 
all asserted the extent to which this method prevails? Have I ventured to fasten an im- 
putation upon any marked or general body of Christian ministers ? It was no object of 
mine to set forth or to signalize my own peculiarity in this matter; and if I rightly under- 
stand who the men are whom the reviewer has in his eye when he speaks of the evange- 
lical clergy, then does he represent me as dealing out my censures against those whom I 
honestly believe to be the instrumental cause of nearly all the vital and substantial Chris- 
tianity in the land. 

Again, is it not possible for a man to have an awakened and tender sense of the sinful- 
ness of one sin, and to have a very slender and inadequate sense of the sinfulness of another ? 
Might not the first circumstance beget in his mind an honest and a general desire to be de- 
livered from sin ; and might not the second circumstance account for the fact, that with 
this mourning for sin in the gross, be should put forth his hand without scruple to the com- 
mission of what is actually sinful ? I do not know a more familiar exhibition of this, thaa 
that of a man who would be visited with remorse were he to walk in the fields on a Sab- 
bath day at the time of divine service, and the very same man indulging without remorse 
his propensity to throw ridicule or discredit on an absent character. His actual remorse 
on the commission of all that he feels to be sinful, might lead a man to mourn over sin in 
the general ; but surely this general direction of his can have no such necessary influence, 
as the reviewer contends for, in the way of leading him to renounce what he does not feel 
to be sinful. But this is what he should be made to feel ; and it may be done in two ways, 
— either in the didactic way, by a formal announcement that the deed in question is con- 
trary to the law of God; or in the imperative way, by bidding him cease from the doing 
of it, — a way no less effective and scriptural than the former, and brought to bear in the 
New Testament upon men at the earliest conceivable stage of their progress from sin unto 
righteousness. 

I share most cordially in opinion with the reviewer, that he might extend his observa- 
tions greatly beyond the length of the original pamphlet, were he to say all that might be 
said on the topics brought forward in it I believe that it would require the compass of an 
extended volume to meet every objection, and to turn the argument in every possible way. 
I did not anticipate all the notice that has been taken of this performance, and am fearful 
lest it should defeat the intended effect on the hearts of a plain people. With this feeling 
I close the discussion for the present; and my desire is, that in all I may afterwards say 
upon this subject, I may be preserved from that tone of controversy, which I feel to be 
hurtful to the practical influence of every truth it accompanies ; and which, I fear, may- 
have in so far infected my former communications, as to make it more fitted to arouse the 
speculative tendencies of the mind, and provoke to an intellectual warfare, than to tell on 
the conscience and on the doings of an earnest inquirer. 

\ Gtmgotc, Dicember, 1815, 



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